The Agency
by damnedscribblingwoman
Summary: In which wizards are known, the Order of the Phoenix is a spy agency, and everyone has the self-preservation instincts of lemmings.
1. Prologue

**AN: Originally written for Round 8 of the Dramione Remix. The original remix couple was Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov.**

* * *

 **Present Day**

The first thing Hermione notices when she comes to is the lack of noise — no cars, no voices, nothing but the soft rustling of wind on trees and the muffled steps of three, no, four people. The pain comes next, almost like an afterthought — her head is pounding; her left shoulder is on fire; there's a stab of pain on her side every time she breathes in. The witch ignores it all. She doesn't open her eyes, does not make a movement, but forces herself to keep breathing the even, steady breaths of someone out cold.

There's barely any light left, and what light there is flickers softly as they move. Trees, probably, and the full moon.

They did not think to restrain her, did not think to tie her up, and under different circumstances that arrogance would have cost them, but she's injured and unarmed and alone. Even if she could break out of the levitation spell — and she can't — there's likely four wands between them, and she doesn't have so much as a butter knife. Those are bad odds any way you look at them, so she keeps silent and still, and waits for an opening that never comes, because the moment they cross the wards, she realises where they brought her.

Hermione must make a noise, because one second she's airborne and the next she falls to the ground with a thud - the sharp pain on her chest and shoulder almost causing her to blackout again. She rolls to the side, coughing and wheezing and trying to catch her breath.

"Looks like our little bird's awake at last," Scabior says, dropping to a crouch next to her. "Not so high and mighty now, are ya?"

"Piss off," she manages to say, gritting her teeth to stop from crying out when another snatcher kicks her.

"On your feet, dove, or Greyback here will drag you all the way to the house, which I for one will get a kick out of, but I don't know that you will care for it."

She pushes herself up despite the pain and forces herself to move, trying to ignore the fear building in her chest. Hermione's been in tight spots before — in the war, during ops, in missions that went pear-shaped at the drop of a hat — but this slow panic clawing at her, this growing terror in the back of her mind, this is new. And Hermione is better than this, she was trained better than this, but she can't think and she can't calm down, and soon they'll be at the Manor, and she should have made them kill her back in London.

She walks between them until they're within sight of the house and then she stops, unable to go any farther. Malfoy Manor looms before them like something out of a nightmare — dark and dangerous and full of horrors — and the only way they're dragging her in is if they kill her first.

Without giving them time to realise she's stopped, without giving herself time to think about it, she lunges at the snatcher to her right, grabbing his wrist and spinning behind him so that he's between her and the other three. Scabior's stun hits the man right in the back and he falls to the ground, almost dragging her down with him, but experience and training kick in and Hermione jumps clear of him, his wand safely in her hand.

She hits one of the snatchers square in the chest with a hex that throws the woman clear across the courtyard, and then hurls a curse at Greyback, who deflects it at the same time Scabior casts a tremor jinx on the ground around her that almost knocks her off her feet. Hermione jumps to the side and backs away, trying to keep them from flanking her. She's too slow — her chest protesting every move, her left arm a dead weight, worse than useless — but she's cornered and terrified, and that's fear she can use. Her spells are desperate, vicious, as she tries to goad them into hitting her with something that will put an end to this.

It's the end of the line for her, and she has no illusions to the contrary. The wards won't let her Disapparate, and running would have been a poor option even had she been capable of it. It's the end and she's made her peace with it. People like her don't make it to old age, don't die tucked safely in bed, surrounded by family and friends and loved ones. She never expected to.

She would have preferred to die with her bow in her hand, but a wand will do just as well.

The sectumsempra that hits her is Greyback's, and the howl of pain it rips from her throat turns into almost-hysterical laughter, and Hermione can taste blood in her tongue.

"That's all you got, mutt?" she asks, firing two jinxes in rapid succession. Neither lands. She's losing steam. "No wonder they won't let you into their little club, if that's all a half-breed like you can manage." _Come on, Greyback._

The werewolf growls and lunges at her, but the contact never comes. Invisible hands yank him back and he falls to the ground with a startled yap that might have been funny if it weren't also terrifying, because Hermione had been so busy focusing on the snatchers that she did not see the robed figures emerging from the house until they were right on top of them.

Her eyes meet Draco's for a split second, and then he says, "Crucio," and the whole word explodes in agonising pain, and she falls to her knees, unable to so much as breathe — all she can do, all she has in her to do, is scream as the spell sets all her nerves on fire.

The pain ends as suddenly as it started, and for a second the relief is so intense she cannot feel anything else — no terror, no fear, none of the pain from her broken ribs and dislocated shoulder, nothing from all the bruises and cuts she's covered in. And then it all comes crashing down on her again, and it's all she can do not to sob.

"Now, now, Draco, darling," says a voice that makes her go cold all over. "Don't break my toys." Bellatrix kneels down in front of Hermione, burying a hand in her hair and jerking her head back so that she's looking at her. "It's such fun when I get to break them myself." Draco is just at the edge of her vision, silent and still, with a face like marble — fair and dispassionate and cold. "Did you think you could run from me, little girl?" Bellatrix's lips brush her cheek in a soft, tender caress that makes her skin crawl. "I always get back the things that are mine."

"If you're going to kill me, just get it over with." _Please. Please kill me._

Bellatrix chuckles, a sound like glass, and lets go of her, pushing herself up to her feet. "And where would the fun be in that?" She spares Hermione one last glance before turning towards the house. "Bring her in."


	2. Then Along Came a Spider

**Five months earlier**

"You're getting sloppy, Granger." Draco sits down next to her at the bar, and Hermione does _not_ jump, because she's a goddamn professional and that sort of tells is for civilians and baby agents who haven't yet had that sort of nonsense kicked out of them.

"It took you almost three months to track me down." She glances at the mirror on the wall, surveying the room behind them. If she missed Draco, what else did she miss? "I think you're the one who's getting sloppy."

Draco's smirk is amused and deliberate, and so painfully familiar she could cry.

"I'd have found you sooner, but Longbottom wanted to give you a head start."

"He around too?" Hermione knows without looking that the old man sitting at the table by the window is on his third beer, that the three miners in the corner booth have extremely strong feelings about Real Madrid, and that the two sweethearts giggling at each other at the table by the door have some sort of warring families, Romeo and Juliet thing going on. She's been keeping tabs on all of them since she arrived, and there is no way in hell any of them is really Neville in disguise — the wizard could not pull off a Russian accent if his life depended on it (which on occasion it has).

"He's back in London." Draco orders a beer in Russian, before adding in English to Hermione, "I came alone."

Which may or may not be true. If it's a lie, Hermione pities the poor tactical team waiting outside in the middle of a blizzard, though not enough to make things easier for them.

"And now that you found me, what?" If there are wards around the place, she won't be able to Disapparate, but there are at least three exit points that she can see, and even if there is a tactical team, she has faced worse odds.

"Now you talk to me, which is what you should have done to begin with."

Hermione deflates at that. Curse Draco for coming, and Neville for sending him, and herself for not doing a better job of covering her tracks. She moves her hand away from her wand and grabs her glass instead, glaring at what is left of her beer.

"I'm not going back, Draco. I've handed in my resignation."

"Shooting an arrow at Macmillan with a note saying 'I quit' does not constitute handing in your resignation."

"I didn't shoot it at Macmillan. I shot it past Macmillan. Had I shot it at Macmillan you'd know by him no longer having a larynx."

"That would have been a marked improvement, if you ask me." Draco touches his wand to her glass, refilling it, to the bartender's great disgust.

"No magic on the premises," he says, pointing at the sign that hangs over the bar, which shows a crossed-out wand. "You're paying for that."

"Apologies." Draco pulls out a couple of notes from his wallet and drops them on the counter. "Keep the change."

The man grabs the money — looking none the less offended for it — and moves away, muttering all the while about stuck-up wizards thinking they own the world just because they can pull rabbits out of a hat. Viktor Ivanovich has no need for any such nonsense, and he'll have none of it in his pub, no sir. Grown men waving sticks around like pixies, making beer where before there was no beer. It is wrong. It is unnatural. It is bad for business. And he bets it isn't even good beer, either.

"People like us," Draco says, and Hermione is fairly sure he doesn't mean 'wizards', "don't resign."

"PHOENIX doesn't own me, Draco. Whatever McGonagall may think to the contrary. If I want to quit, I'll quit, and there's nothing she or you can do about it."

"If you really believed that, you wouldn't have felt the need to cross nine different countries under six different identities."

Twelve countries and just as many identities, in fact, but if he doesn't know that, she isn't about to tell him.

"No, I just really didn't want to have this conversation." She still doesn't. She would have preferred the version of this where she had to fight her way out of the bar with a tactical team on her heels. "And you're a damn hypocrite. 'People like us don't resign' indeed. You're really going to tell me you don't have an exit strategy?"

"Sure I do. And it doesn't involve me getting caught in a dive bar in the middle of Siberia, either." They glare at each other for a moment. Hermione is the first one to look away. "We've made too many enemies," Draco continues. "You have a target on your back. If I can find you, so can others."

Hermione does not reply. She's off her game, and what's more, she knows it — making the sort of sloppy, amateurish mistakes that have got better agents killed. And she can't even bring herself to care that much about it, except for the part where it is a waste of perfectly good covers.

"What happened wasn't your fault," Draco says, and Hermione jumps to her feet, startling the young couple and interrupting one of the miners, who had been in the middle of a rant on the merits of Ronaldo vs. Messi.

"We are not talking about that," she says.

"We bloody well are."

"Goodbye, Draco." She makes for the door without bothering to so much as grab her coat, but when she turns the handle, nothing happens. Hermione doesn't need the bartender's indignant shout of, "No magic on the premises!" to know why not. When she turns to face Draco, she too has drawn her wand. "I don't want to fight you. Just let me go."

"No."

Her spell tears through the air past the exact spot where Draco had been not a second ago and hits the mirror behind the bar, smashing it to pieces and sending all the Muggles ducking for cover. She doesn't have time to contemplate what a bad idea this is before she has to dive out of the way of Draco's spell. He's better than her, faster — specially in such close quarters — but she's angry and upset, and she has the better aim. Spells bounce off the walls, reducing wood and glass to splinters across the room, the screams and choked sobs of the Muggles still audible under the general commotion.

This is exactly the sort of nonsense that makes a mess of Muggle-Wizard relations, and Neville is going to kill them both when he gets wind of it, but just now she doesn't care. The Muggles are shielded from the worst of it by benches and tables turned on their side, and Hermione and Draco are good enough not to hit with a spell anything they don't mean to. And right now the only thing they're trying to hit is each other.

"We could talk this out," Draco shouts over the noise, deflecting one of her spells.

"Sure." She aims a hex at the wall behind him, and it bounces perfectly, hitting him square in the back and throwing him to the ground. "You first."

Draco rolls out of the way of her next spell and scrambles to his feet, firing a jinx that hits nothing but air. The words for a Knockback Jinx are on her lips when a loud bang and a gush of wind only a few inches from her head make her dive forward, out of the way of the second shot that immediately follows the first.

The bartender takes aim again, but before he can fire, Draco falls to the ground next to Hermione, and the minute he touches her, the familiar pull of a Portkey grabs her and the bar dissolves around them, grimy walls giving way to cream-coloured wallpaper, and the debris-covered floor turning into soft carpet. They don't speak for several moments, their laboured breaths the only sound in the otherwise quiet room. And then Hermione starts to laugh — a soft chuckle that snowballs into peals of laughter, and had anyone asked her what was so funny, she would not have known what to say, except that they just destroyed half a bar in Siberia and that's sort of funny when looked at from a certain perspective, and Merlin, they're in so much trouble.

"Neville is going to murder us," she says, and Draco snorts.

"Has to find us first. Unlike you, I know how to cover my tracks."

She snickers, curling against his side. Part of her hates that he came for her, even if part of her feared that he wouldn't, that no one would think her worth the trouble, not even him. Not after everything.

"I don't want to go back," she says after a few moments, hating how much it sounds like a whine.

Draco's lips brush against her forehead. "I know," he says. They're quiet for a moment and then he sits up, holding out a hand to help her up. "Come on. We should clean up, and there's food around here somewhere."

"Where are we?" She looks around for the first time. There isn't much in the way of furniture in the small living room the Portkey brought them to. There's a small sofa against the wall, a coffee table a short distance from it, and a bookcase filled with travel guides and old paperbacks. There are no pictures on the walls, nor any indication that anyone actually lives here.

"Moscow. Safe house," Draco says.

"PHOENIX's?"

"No. It's one of mine."

And that's surprising, but she does not comment as she follows him to the bathroom. They're both of them a little worse for wear, but nothing serious. Just a few cuts and bruises — nothing a little dittany won't put to rights. The bathroom is just off the master bedroom, and when Hermione walks out, Draco is changing his shirt and she can see the full expanse of his chest. Her gaze falls on the scar on his left side, and for a second the world changes and she's up on that rooftop again, the wind loud in her ears, the tension of the drawn bow familiar and reassuring.

She can see them all on the street below, battling the squad of Death Eaters — Harry always front and centre, going where the fight is at its fiercest, drawing the bulk of the fire onto himself, because he has a martyr complex the size of the world; the twins picking up stranglers at the edge with a vicious intensity that is matched only by Ron's, who is trying to reach Harry.

The killing curse that hits Ron comes from the side of the street, and Hermione sees it coming a mile away. The Death Eater that gets him barely has time to celebrate before a green blast sends him flying through the air. Draco does not wait to see him fall, does not stay in one place longer than necessary to cast a spell. He's there one moment and gone the next, Apparating and Disapparating with practised ease, firing curses with deadly accuracy. It's almost like a dance — graceful and lovely and lethal.

When Bellatrix gives the order, Hermione is not surprised.

"Take that one down," she says, and Hermione does not feel a thing — no hesitation, no doubt, not the smallest hint of reluctance. Bellatrix Lestrange orders her to shoot him, and Hermione takes aim, careful to time it just right, factoring in the wind speed, the distance, the pattern of Draco's movements (and there's _always_ a pattern). The moment she releases the arrow, she knows it will find its mark.

"Hey," Draco says, bringing her back to the present. He cups her face with soft, warm hands, and Hermione blinks away tears. "You with me, Granger?"

"Yeah." Her fingers trace the spot just above his heart where her arrow hit true. "I almost killed you," she says. A few inches lower and she would have.

He tilts her head up, so that she's looking at him. "At that distance," he says, "with your bow, if you had wanted to kill me, I'd be dead."

"I missed." Just a little. Just enough.

"You don't miss."

She pushes him away without replying, walking past him to where he laid out a change of clothes for her. Sometimes she misses. Though not often enough, considering how many of their own she took out during the assault on Westminster.

Thirty-two wizards. Eleven Muggles. Three goblins. One Squib. And those are the ones she can name — the ones who fell to one of her arrows, the ones who broke under one of her spells. She led the Death Eaters in. She helped them bypass all the security measures designed to keep them out. Every single one of their kills is on her too.

They eat in silence, and afterwards Hermione does the dishes, Muggle-style, because there's something relaxing about using her hands. Draco helps out by spelling everything dry, because he does not believe in doing by hand what he can accomplish perfectly well with magic.

"Are you coming back with me?" he asks as she gets started on a pan.

"Do I have a choice?"

"Of course."

Hermione gives him a look, and he looks back at her with all the innocence of a man who did not just kidnap and bring her to a mysterious location somewhere in Moscow.

"I'm not dragging you back to PHOENIX kicking and screaming," he says with a shrug. "If you want to keep running, I won't stop you."

"But?" she asks, because nothing with Draco is ever that easy.

"But if getting yourself killed is what you're after, there are easier ways." He pushes off the counter and walks towards the living room without waiting for a reply.

Hermione pauses for a moment and then resumes her work, scrubbing the pan clean without hurrying and setting it on the rack to dry. She dries her hands and sets the kitchen towel neatly on the counter, and only then does she follow Draco to the living room. He doesn't look away from the window when she walks in. Hermione sits down on the other end of the sofa and props her feet on his lap, leaning against the cushions.

"I'm not trying to get myself killed," she says, because it's mostly true.

"You're not doing much to avoid it, either." And that's mostly true as well.

His fingers press the arch of her foot, digging into it, and she sighs, relaxing despite herself. It feels better than anything has felt in ages. They sit there in companionable silence and it's nice. Familiar. It's also complete bullshit, and Hermione has known Draco long enough to know when he's playing her. He never presses her to talk. He just waits her out, knowing that sooner or later she'll feel compelled to fill the silence. Prat.

"Have you ever been Imperiused?" she asks after a long while, and maybe the reason he keeps doing it is because it keeps working.

"No," he says without looking at her.

"It's— It feels— Pleasant." They never tell them that in training. Hermione tilts her head back against the arm of the sofa, looking up at the ceiling, and Draco keeps rubbing her feet without saying a word, fingers squeezing and pressing, just this side of painful. "One little word and everything becomes so easy. There are no doubts, no fear… It's just like— It's like you're floating, all the time." She falls silent, and somewhere in the house there's a clock that keeps ticking away the seconds, loud and insistent. "I thought I'd be different," she says softly, barely louder than the clock. "I thought I'd be better. The Imperius Curse is supposed to work on the weak-minded. I thought I'd be better," she repeats, her voice trailing off.

Thirty-two wizards, eleven Muggles, three goblins, one Squib, and this is what keeps her up at night. Not guilt, though she feels that too. No. Forty-seven people dead at her hands — and so many more besides — and what keeps her up at night is hurt ego, hurt pride, and enough shame to drown in. Hermione isn't sure what that says about her, but probably nothing terribly flattering.

Draco does not say a word, and Hermione is done talking. He wanted to know her secrets and now he does. She's done talking and he can go fuck himself.

She makes to get up, but he tightens the grip on her feet, keeping them on his lap. When she meets his eyes, there's no reading his expression, and that's just as well. There's no trusting anything that shows on Draco Malfoy's face, and it's a fool who thinks otherwise.

"They take people," he says, "and turn them inside out. It's what they do. And they're good at it. _She_ is good at it. You think you're weak because they managed to Imperio you? I wasn't Imperiused when I got this little souvenir." He lifts his left arm, and though she cannot see the Dark Mark, she knows it's there. "And I took it willingly enough."

"It's not the same."

"Really?" He smirks, running a finger across the plant of her right foot just to watch her squirm. Hermione tries to kick him, but his other hand tightens the grip on her ankles. "And what makes you so bloody special?"

She rolls her eyes, but cannot help the soft smile tugging at the corner of her lips. Merlin, she missed him.

"A lot of people won't be happy to see me back." She doesn't want to go back — she really, really doesn't — but he's not wrong, and her pity party has lasted long enough.

"Yeah, well, those are the same people who are still bitter you didn't put an arrow through my head when you had the chance. That's twice over you've disappointed them on that score, incidentally. I tend not to give them much thought."


	3. PHOENIX

In Islington, London, there is a street where for many years it was supposed that a council employee, either through careless inattention or inexplicable, unjustifiable, petty malice had caused the house numbers to skip from eleven to thirteen. It was with great satisfaction and no small amount of relief that the Islington Council received the news that wizards were real and magic existed in the world. It explained, after all, a great deal. It explained that pesky business with the twelve dead people and the mysterious crater come out of nowhere. It explained the strange behaviour of owls. It most certainly explained number 12 Grimmauld Place. It wasn't incompetence on the part of the council, it was magic, and they'd thank everyone to stop sending them letters on the subject.

That was years ago, of course, and in the time since the Muggle families of Grimmauld Place have easily come to accept that every once in a while there is an extra house on the street, and no one pays it much mind. The wizard family who lives there — for it is generally accepted that a wizard family _must_ live there — tends to keep to itself, and the best sort of neighbours are the ones no one notices. And if there are still those who bristle at the notion of a magic house disturbing the natural order of things — postal employees find it particularly offencive to their sensibilities — everyone tries to live with it as best they can. Wizards are, after all, notoriously weird.

Successive governments have tried to relocate the headquarters of the Paranormal Hazard Office for Extra-Human and Non-Human Intelligence Extraction to a more suitable location. MI5 has Thames House. MI6 has the SIS Building. It's just not the thing for a government agency to be housed in a run-down building that isn't even there half the time. The government cannot be seen to be showing any bias against wizards, and most certainly not against the wizards it employs. There are laws against such things. Also principles of basic decency. Could they possibly interest them in Bradford Park? It's a Grade II listed building with state-of-the-art facilities and extensive grounds. They would surely find it most suitable.

Successive PHOENIX directors have found that they could not possibly be any less interested in Bradford Park or in any other alternative to 12 Grimmauld Place, and they'd thank the Ministry of Magic to kindly make that clear to their Muggle brethren.

Wizards are traditionalists at heart, and PHOENIX and 12 Grimmauld Place go back a long way. And besides, there's more to the house than meets the eye.

Draco and Hermione Apparate on the top step, the one spot where the wards will allow Apparition while still hiding their presence from anyone out on the street. Draco touches his wand to the wooden door, which swings open, revealing a dark corridor. It smells of mold and mildew, and the wallpaper is faded and pealing in places.

The house — a decrepit old husk that was once the stately home of one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, back when that meant something — is quiet and deserted. The floorboards creak under their weight as they walk past silent, disapproving portraits and dust-covered rooms. White sheets cover the furniture in the living room, and cobwebs rest undisturbed on the ceiling, on the walls, over knick-knacks that someone once treasured.

There's a fire burning in the fireplace, the only sign of life in the otherwise dormant building.

Hermione waves her wand at the fire, which turns blue. Without giving herself time to think better of it, she walks across the flames and through the solid wall at the back, appearing in the middle of a spacious lobby, all of it wide planes and polished surfaces. Scrolls rush by inside clear tubes along the walls, and owls dive over the heads of the people below them in their haste to deliver their missives. Agents hurry across the room — wizards, Muggles, goblins, Squibs — and it's easy to tell the Muggles apart from everyone else. They're the only ones constantly startled by the owls.

No one pays Draco and Hermione any mind at first, and then someone says something to their neighbour, and it's like kindle catching fire. Suddenly the whole room is abuzz with none-too-subtle glances and none-too-subtle whispers. For a bunch of spies, they certainly don't make much of an effort to hide their interest.

"I'm regretting this already," she mutters.

"Let's go find Longbottom."

"Granger!"

Fred and George stride across the hall, big smiles on their faces, both of them either oblivious to the tension in the air or entirely untroubled by it — maybe the first, probably the latter. The twins thrive on chaos. Where others would see cause for concern, they see nothing but opportunity.

"Timely arrival," George says.

"We just finished putting the final touches on your bow."

And suddenly Hermione is no longer worried about the less than covert animosity directed at her by the people in the crowded lobby. She bites back a whimper and shoots an accusing look at Draco, who shrugs.

"You left it here," he says. "If you didn't want them to get their hands on it, you should have taken it with you."

"It was in my quarters."

"Yeah, but see," Fred says, "agents who quit after going on a murdering spree surrender all rights to their private quarters."

Someone nearby actually gasps.

"It's perfectly clear in the PHOENIX handbook," George agrees, ignoring the shocked looks cast their way.

"Section 3, article 27, under 'What happens when an asset runs off after being brainwashed into doing the bidding of a dark lord.'"

"It's a bit outdated, granted. It's a dark lady now."

"But general principles still apply."

Much as Hermione loves them, she could kill them right now. "What have you done to my baby?" she asks, dreading the answer.

"We made it better."

"So much better, Hermione."

"It strings itself now."

"And enchants its own arrows."

"Well, kinda."

"We've added a dragon heartstring core. You should be able to enchant the arrows as you shoot them. In theory."

"In theory?"

"Well, we also made it so no one could shoot it but you. Anyone tries and they'll die a slow, painful, excruciating death, so that kind of threw a wrench in the whole testing it thing. In hindsight, we probably should have left that one for last."

"No kidding."

"Hate to break up this party," a voice says, "but Granger here is late for a meeting."

Neville smiles at her, the same soft, easy-going smile he had when he recruited her all those years ago. She hadn't deserved it then and she doesn't deserve it now. She remembers every single thing that happened while she was Imperiused, and she remembers him most of all. She remembers him taking on Bellatrix's personal guard by himself. She remembers Bellatrix Lestrange leaving him for dead. She remembers walking past his fallen body without so much as a glance at the man who had once upon a time put his faith in a two-bit thief with nothing to recommend her but quick fingers and fast reflexes and prodigious aim.

"Hi," she says quietly, something heavy and painful in her chest.

"Hi yourself." His smile never falters, and it warms Hermione in ways she hadn't even known she needed. "Malfoy, Parkinson needs you."

"Yes, sir." With a nod at her, Draco takes off.

The crowd in the lobby has thinned out somewhat, and that's either because the novelty of gawking at her has worn off, or because people would rather do their staring and pointing where a senior agent can't see them.

"You must be happy, Longbottom," Fred says, grinning. "Your two pet assassins back under the same roof."

"Is there a reason why you two are here?" Neville asks the twins.

"We work here."

"You really don't."

"We're consultants. We consult. And mock your R&D department. We can't mock from a distance."

"Well, we can, but it's not half as much fun."

Neville's sigh is drawn-out and long-suffering. "Would it be too much to ask you not to blow up any of the labs this time? We have Muggles on the premises."

"Yes, you do." George's grin is all delight. "And they're so much fun."

"So gullible. So easy to startle. We like them exceedingly."

"Go away."

"Yes, boss," George says, and Fred mock salutes. "Come find us after, Hermione. We have your bow down in the main lab."

And then it's just Neville and Hermione, and suddenly she doesn't know what to say or how to act, and that's pathetic. Neville has known her longer than anyone there, and he knows her better than anyone anywhere, except possibly Draco.

"What's with all the Muggles?" she asks for something to say.

"Inter-agency cooperation." He starts walking and Hermione falls into step beside him. "After what happened, Whitehall is making us play nice with the Muggle intelligence and security agencies."

And isn't that just great? Another thing that's her fault.

"Sorry," she says. The agents they come across ignore them with all the intensity of people trying really hard not to stare.

"It isn't your fault." She doesn't have anything to say to that, so she says nothing, but Neville never knew when to let anything go. "Hermione," he says, and she rolls her eyes before meeting his gaze. "It isn't your fault," he repeats. "You want to blame someone, blame Bellatrix Lestrange."

Oh, she does. But Hermione can multitask.

It's only when they take the elevator down to the lowest floor that it occurs to Hermione to ask who they're having a meeting with.

"With the Director," Neville says, and Hermione groans. "I don't know why you're surprised. Her assets go missing, she's going to have a thing or two to say on the subject."

"I didn't go missing. I resigned."

"Yeah, well, later you and I are going to sit down and go over the proper resignation procedure. And while we're at it, we'll also review PHOENIX's policies on shooting arrows at fellow agents."

"I didn't shoot it at him; I shot it past him," Hermione grumbles.

Minerva McGonagall's office is much like Minerva McGonagall herself: grand and impressive, designed to awe, astonish and intimidate. Bookcases heavy with leather-bound tomes line the walls not taken up by the massive fireplace, and portraits of prominent agents and former directors keep a vigilant eye on everything that happens. There's a portrait of Ariana Dumbledore, founder of PHOENIX, next to the portrait of Albus Dumbledore, its most famous director. There's a portrait of Alastor Moody, who though never a PHOENIX agent led the Auror Office through most of the war.

There are also portraits of field agents who went above and beyond, like Frank and Alice Longbottom, James and Lily Potter, Benjy Fenwick — so many others. There's a portrait of Severus Snape, who Hermione remembers as a sour, unpleasant, bully of a man, but who served PHOENIX loyally and was instrumental in ending the war.

They were once PHOENIX's best and brightest, and they're meant as a reminder of the values held by the organisation: valour, loyalty, knowledge, cunning. To Hermione, however, they're mostly a reminder that everyone dies — the brave, loyal, smart and resourceful along with everyone else — and that people in their line of work tend to die younger and more brutally than the rest.

McGonagall does not invite Hermione and Neville to sit, so they stand and wait for the director to acknowledge them. Hermione imagines that this is what it must feel like to be sent to the head teacher's office after skipping class. If this is something she missed out on by not attending Hogwarts, she can't say she's terribly sorry.

"Miss Granger," McGonagall says at last, looking at her over her spectacles, "kind of you to make an appearance. I trust you enjoyed your holidays?"

"Most restful, ma'am." Someone snorts, and though Hermione does not look, she bets it was Albus Dumbledore. The old man always had a sense of humour. McGonagall seems less than impressed.

"Excellent," she says. "And since you are so well-rested, you will have no trouble understanding me when I tell you that the next time you decide to absent yourself without leave, you will find that PHOENIX no longer has a place for you." Hermione grits her teeth and says nothing. "You went through a traumatic event, and that's unfortunate, but this building is full of people who went through traumatic events. We carry on. PHOENIX carries on. I have no use for assets who wallow in self-pity. Is that clear?"

Hermione's voice is cool and steady when she says, "Yes, ma'am."

"Good. You are off the field until you pass your psych evaluations to my satisfaction. You will train, you will go to therapy, and you will handle whatever paperwork Mr Longbottom sees fit to give you. Do you understand?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"See that you do. You're dismissed."

The moment the door swings closed behind them, Neville pats her sympathetically on the shoulder.

"If it's any comfort, she once called me a bloody disgrace."

"What did you do?"

Neville smiles ruefully. "Enough for it to be well deserved." A house-elf pops up next to them and hands him a scroll. "Get settled in," Neville says after quickly skimming the note. "I have things to take care of. Be in my office at 0800 tomorrow."

"Yes, sir."

There are many things Hermione needs to take care of, many people she needs to see, but first she's going to rescue her bow from Tweedledee and Tweedledum before they have time to cause any more mischief. Who ever heard of a wand core on a bow?

The main lab is part science laboratory, part alchemy dungeon, a place where cauldrons and potion vials co-exist peacefully — for the most part — with microscopes and centrifuges. PHOENIX employs alchemists and potion masters, but also Muggle scientists and research assistants, and while it is true that such an arrangement occasionally results in some friction — the wizards find the scientists narrow-minded; the scientists find the wizards absurd and, what's worse, _unscientific_ — the sometimes difficult and at times less than good-natured rivalry between both groups serves the organisation well.

When Hermione reaches the lab, she finds it uncharacteristically empty. The only person there is Draco, who doesn't so much as glance her way when she walks in, busy tapping away at one of the terminals. Around him, soft, twisted threads of light rise from different points in the room — from bubbling cauldrons, from piles of scrolls, from potions ordered neatly in a row — and drift through the air to the open vial on the counter next to him.

"What on earth are you doing?"

"Gathering intel to pass on to our enemies for whom I've been secretly working this whole time, obviously," he says without looking away from the computer screen.

Hermione snorts. "Whoever told you you're funny was lying to you."

"I have a dry wit."

"That's one way to put it." She looks around, frowning. "Where is everyone?"

"Watching Weasley One and Weasley Two try to blow each other up in the containment room."

She leans back against the counter next to him and glances distractedly at the screen.

"Why are Fred and George trying to blow each other up?"

"They put a modified Impervius Charm on an amulet, and it's supposed to shield them against spells and Muggle weapons." Removing the flash drive from the terminal, Draco tucks it away in his pocket and finally turns to look at Hermione. "They tried a few jinxes in here, and it actually worked surprisingly well for something they cooked up while sleep-deprived and high on sugar. And then someone told them there is a bazooka in the armoury and, well, you can imagine the rest."

" _Someone_ should know better than to encourage them."

Draco smirks. "I only provide people with information. What they choose to do with it is their business."

"They're going to get themselves killed."

"Yes. Sooner or later. But not today. Creevey and Lovegood told on them to Zabini. He'll keep them from doing something too permanent."

There is not a soul alive who can hope to restrain the twins' most reckless impulses — they have too high an opinion of their own genius, too small a regard for consequences, and absolutely no self-preservation instincts — but for reasons mysterious to everyone everywhere, Blaise Zabini stands a better chance than most, despite projecting an appearance for all the world to see of a man who really could not care less whether his employers do manage to kill themselves. In fact, he welcomes the possibility. Maybe then he can get a little peace.

"What _are_ you doing?" she asks again, watching him cork the vial that's now full of a glowing, almost translucent fluid.

"It's classified."

Hermione gasps dramatically, assuming an expression of mock injury. "I'm gone three months and suddenly you're keeping secrets from me?"

Draco snorts, kissing her temple in passing. "Would I ever?" he asks, his tone all innocence.

"Yes," she says after him. "All the time. And let me tell you, Malfoy, I resent—"

Her gaze falls on the case by the corner, and she immediately forgets all about Draco, and his secrets, and the twins, and Blaise Zabini. She walks over, everything else fading in the background, and touches the case almost reverently, before opening it with unsteady fingers.

"Hello, beautiful," she whispers, hands hovering over the bow without actually touching it. She left it behind when she took off — because a bow isn't exactly covert, because she was done with that part of her life, because traitors don't deserve nice things, and that bow is the nicest thing she owns. She left it, and all this time it felt like missing a limb, and she hadn't realised how much until now.

She takes it out of the case and it feels alive in her hands in a way it hadn't before, in a way that puts her strongly in mind of her wand — vibrant and responsive and full of possibilities. And Hermione has never needed her bow — the steadiest, brightest, best part of herself — to be anything but what it has always been. Give her an arrow and a good vantage point, and she doesn't need magic to make great things happen.

But this right here, the product of the twins' eager hands and clever brains, it warms the heart, and not just because of all the things it can do. Merlin, she wants to find out all the things it can do. She wants to take it to the range this minute and spend the next twelve hours playing with it, finding out its limits, getting to know it anew. But that's not what's putting a smile on her face. No.

They never doubted she'd come back. They took her bow and made all the changes they had always wanted to make and she had always vetoed, never once doubting that she would return to yell at them about it. They trusted Draco to find her, and Hermione to let him, and they trusted her to get over herself and come back.


	4. The Fox in the Henhouse

No one excels who doesn't have something to prove, and Hermione spent years trying to convince herself and everyone else that she deserves her place at PHOENIX just as much as any of the entitled, self-important, Hogwarts-educated prats she works with. Everything she knows she taught herself. Everything she has, she earned herself. And if there are those who over the years have been less than pleased to be outclassed by an ex-carnie thief with no family, no education and a fondness for old-fashioned Muggle weapons, she never once let that bother her.

Not much, anyway.

She will never have Potter's skill with a wand nor Draco's ruthless efficiency, but there isn't a target she cannot hit, nor a mission objective she cannot accomplish. She's good. She's excellent. She worked hard enough to be.

Turns out it might have been better for everyone, herself included, had she been a little less excellent.

Hermione isn't the first PHOENIX agent to have been Imperiused — not by a long shot. During the war, put any ten agents in a room and odds were good that the enemy had got to at least one. But not a single one of them ever managed to cause the amount of damage she did, nor in so spectacular a fashion. And she supposes that's an achievement of sorts, right? Potter brought down the Dark Lord; Hermione almost brought down the government. That's kind of the same.

Right?

Not according to any of the agents in her immediate vicinity, no. Animosity gives way to scorn, gives way to pointed indifference, and suddenly no one's paying attention to Hermione anymore. Everyone's very deliberately not paying attention to Hermione anymore. She'll walk into the armoury and every last wizard and witch will walk out. She'll set down her tray on a table in the cafeteria, and everyone else at that table will get up. It puzzles the Muggles exceedingly. It makes Ginny Weasley see red.

"Un-fucking-believable," she says, loud enough to be heard. "Are you fucking twelve, Brown?"

"Leave them be," Hermione says, glancing after Cho and Lavender. "Chang and Diggory were close." An arrow through the eye. She can still see it.

Ginny stabs her food with her fork. "Cry me a river. We've all lost people. That's the job. They're not special and they don't get to be assholes about it."

Ginny and the twins don't talk about Ron. They don't talk about Bill. They don't talk about Charlie. The Weasleys have bled more for PHOENIX than any other pure-blood family, but they never talk about their dead. Their loss is their own, their grief is their own, and they mourn their own in private.

Hermione does not spare much thought for Cho Chang and Lavender Brown. She does not lose any sleep over Ernie Macmillan's loud and barbed opinions on how Persons of Unstable Temper and Proven Criminal Inclinations belong in Azkaban, not in Number 12. She does not pay any mind to the agents who look past her and talk over her, and generally go out of their way to make their contempt for her obvious.

She does not. She absolutely refuses to.

She keeps her head down and her mouth shut, and she does her work, counting the days until she's allowed back in the field.

On days when she feels invisible, she holes up in Neville's office and helps him with paperwork — scrolls and scrolls of status reports, and assessment reports, and requisitions.

On days when she wishes she really were invisible, she holes up in the simulation room, just her and her bow and something to shoot at, and tries very hard not to over-analyse the fact that nothing helps clear her mind more than a target and a weapon and a clear line of sight.

The targets — stock villains with dark moustaches and cartoonish grins — materialise around her and she shoots arrow after arrow after arrow, without doubt, without hesitation, without pause. Hermione does not stop to think; she does not stop to aim. She just spins and turns and shoots until her fingers are sore and every muscle aches. An arrow for every unkind word, an arrow for every cutting remark.

An arrow for all the ways in which she fell short.

The targets double, triple, quadruple — increasingly faster, in increasingly more unlikely places — but Hermione does not slow down and she never misses.

An arrow for Antonin Dolohov. An arrow for Igor Karkaroff.

She drops and rolls to the side when a curse flies past the spot where she'd just been, letting the momentum help her back up and releasing an arrow just in time to hit the robed figure who cast it.

An arrow for Walden Macnair. One for Vincent Crabbe.

A civilian appears to her left and she shoots the enemy combatant behind it, not waiting to see the arrow find its target before shooting at the Death Eater on the other side of a window.

One for Theodore Nott. One for Corban Yaxley.

One for Amycus Carrow, who laughed when she took out Angelina.

One for Barty Crouch, who took out Ron.

One for Bellatrix—

Hermione stops short, bow drawn and aimed straight at Draco. The abrupt interruption is so jarring that for a moment she has no more reaction than to just stand there, the sound of her breathing loud to her ears.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" she finally manages to say, lowering the bow. The street and buildings disappear, and all around them arrows fall to the floor. "I could have shot you."

Draco shrugs. "Been there, done that."

"That's not fucking funny."

 _He had looked surprised when the arrow hit, staring at the shaft poking out of his chest as if he couldn't quite grasp what had just happened. And then he had looked up at the roof. When he fell to his knees, the look of surprise was gone._

"Come on." Draco smirks, alive and whole, leaning back against the table that is now the only piece of furniture in the otherwise empty room. "It's a little funny."

Hermione puts the bow down before she shoots him for real. Around them the arrows scattered across the floor shine briefly before disappearing.

"Is there a reason you're here?" Other than to try her patience.

"Wanted to see if you wanted to grab dinner."

"And that couldn't wait until the end of the simulation?"

"Considering you've been practically living in this place? No." Draco grabs one of the arrows on the table, turning it between his fingers. "I feared I might starve."

"So you thought an arrow to the throat was preferable?" Because that could still be arranged.

"It was a calculated risk."

"They didn't teach maths at that fancy school of yours, did they?"

"Not as such, no."

"That explains so much." She seizes the arrow and Draco lets her.

"So," he says. "Dinner? There's a new Italian place down the street."

"No, thank you. The only place I'm headed to is bed."

"You've got to eat."

"I really don't."

"And you've been cooped up at HQ for weeks. It's becoming a little sad."

"Screw you."

"Some might even say a little pathetic."

"I hate you."

"You can hate me on a full stomach."

Hermione makes a face. "Don't wanna."

"Tough." He swings an arm over her shoulders as they walk towards the door. "I do things I don't want to do all the time. I went all the way to Siberia looking for you. Does that strike you as something I wanted to do? You can make it to the end of the street." He wrinkles his nose. "Though you need a shower first. You stink."

"Screw you." She tries to push him away, but Draco just laughs and tightens his grip on her. "Jerk," she says, relaxing against his side.

"I'm a delight."

"You're an ass," she says, but she's smiling, and when did that become such a foreign sensation? "When are they sending you out again?" Draco hasn't been around much. She's off the field, but he's not, and PHOENIX keeps him busy.

"Soon," is all he says, because Draco Malfoy doesn't do specific when he can do vague a mysterious.

They make it all the way to her door before she remembers she really, really, _really_ doesn't want to go out.

"How about," she says, "you go grab us a pizza instead, while I take a shower?" Pizza is Italian, right?

"Why on earth would I want to do that?"

"Because it's an entirely reasonable compromise between what I want to do and what you want to do."

"Try again."

"Because I have a bottle of Firewhisky in my room."

"Four seasons or Margherita?"

Muggles don't deliver pizzas to secret headquarters located under mysterious houses that may or may not be there at any given time, so Draco takes off to procure some and Hermione walks into her room, dropping the bow case on top of the dresser.

The agent quarters at PHOENIX are neither spacious nor homey, but for Hermione, who never had much of a place to call her own, this small, cluttered room _is_ home. There are clothes scattered everywhere — dirty laundry all over the floor, a bra hanging from the light on the nightstand, a mountain of t-shirts under the bow case on the dresser. There's a padded vest on top of the small television set, and a leaning pile of paperbacks next to it that makes up in height what it lacks in stability.

Hermione doesn't entertain much.

She waves her wand at the mess and the clothes fly up in the air and into the hamper in the corner. The bow case wobbles unsteadily under the t-shirts, so Hermione lifts it so that they can follow their kin. The paperbacks glide to the bookcase, tripping over each other in their haste to find their place on the shelves — by cover colour, like a rainbow. It's not exactly the Dewey Decimal System, but then, it's not meant to be.

The duvet straightens itself on the bed, the pillows fluff themselves on top of it, and the room looks a little less like a place that was just ransacked by a house-elf with a grudge, and a little more like somewhere a functional adult might actually live.

Congratulating herself on a job well done, Hermione heads for the shower, leaving behind her a trail of discarded clothes.

The water lashes her skin, heavy and hot, just this side of burning, and Hermione sighs contently, closing her eyes as she ducks her head under the spray. Her muscles are tense and sore, but it's the pleasant sort of soreness that comes with effort and exertion and hard work. It's what she aims for — a tiredness that's physical and simple. Uncomplicated. It brings with it a tranquillity and clarity that nothing else ever matches.

She wraps herself in a fluffy white robe, and walks out of the bathroom, trying to squeeze the excess water out of her hair with a towel. Draco is sitting on the bed, watching TV, a closed pizza box next to him. The door had been locked, but Draco Malfoy has never once let something as pedestrian as a locked door stop him from entering a place.

"I don't believe these people are terribly competent parents," he says without looking away from the television.

"What are you watching?"

"Home Alone." He grabs a pillow from the bed and drops it on the floor in front of him. "Sit here."

Hermione settles down between his legs, back against the bed, and Draco takes the towel from her hands, handing her the pizza box instead.

"Why ask for a Hawaiian if you're going to have them remove the pineapple?" she asks, taking a slice.

"Pineapple in pizza is disgusting."

"You're wrong."

"Not in general, and not about this."

Hermione holds up a slice for him to take a bite, because despite his abysmal taste in food, he did bring the pizza, so she will be kind and not let him starve.

Draco pats her hair dry — or at least less soaking wet — and then takes his time brushing it, running the brush soothingly from the top of her head all the way to the end of each lock, and Hermione doesn't even care that the dryer her hair gets, the frizzier all this brushing will make it, because just now it feels like heaven. His legs are a strong, solid presence on either side of her, and she's warm and comfortable and just about managing not to lean into the touch, cat-like.

"Met Finnigan and Richards. They're not happy with you."

Hermione rolls her eyes. "They can take it up with Fred and George."

Draco chuckles, fingers scraping across her scalp, followed by the soft pressure of the brush. Everyone else is mad at her because of the time she let Bellatrix Lestrange pull her strings like a marionette, and put an arrow or twenty through more than a few of their own. Seamus and Denny are mad at her because the next time that happens, she won't be using their arrows to do it.

Seamus Finnigan has been in charge of manufacturing her magical arrows since she joined PHOENIX. He produces exploding arrows, shield-piercing arrows, hexed and jinxed arrows, and any other sort of arrows that only a wizard with an extensive knowledge of offensive magic and a taste for pyrotechnics can dream up.

Denny Richards is a Muggle engineer who does much the same, but with more schematics and fewer jinxes.

Fred and George's additions to her bow have rendered them both fairly redundant.

"Do you think we'll ever get her?" Hermione asks softly.

"Who?"

"Bellatrix." The Death Eaters have learnt from Voldemort's death. They keep their leader safe and out of reach of the Aurors, of the Muggle security forces, of PHOENIX. Bellatrix Lestrange is a hard woman to catch, and a harder woman to kill.

"I don't think it matters."

Hermione sits forward and turns slightly to look at him. "How can it possibly not matter?"

Draco tuts her and turns her head forward. "Everyone thought killing the Dark Lord would be the end of the Death Eaters. It wasn't. Her death won't be the end of them either. Cut off one head and two more shall take its place."

And isn't that a depressing thought?

"Perhaps," she says. "But the war is over. His death made the world a safer place. Hers will too."

And if not, Hermione will still sleep better at night knowing that Bellatrix Lestrange is rotting six feet under.

Draco does not reply, and they watch the movie in silence. Finally putting down the brush, he starts French-braiding her hair, because apparently that's something master spies know how to do. Hermione can't French-braid hair, but then she's always been better at the shooting part than at the spying part.

"I don't believe that's something one could realistically do without killing someone," he says, looking at the screen, where Kevin McCallister has just set someone's skull on fire.

"I don't think realism is what they were going for." Hermione holds up another slice of pizza, and Draco leans forward over her, taking a bite.

"This is a very disturbing movie."

"It's a Christmas classic."

"It's March. And it being a Christmas classic makes it more disturbing, not less."

 _Home Alone 2_ is on right after, providing Draco with new and exciting opportunities to decry the Muggle entertainment industry as nonsensical, blood-thirsty and downright barbarian. Hermione calls him a pure-blood snob with no sense of humour. Draco calls her an undiscerning peasant with no sensibility and less taste. By the time the movie ends and the news come around, they've both drank enough Firewhisky to agree that far from being the far-fetched, unrealistic product of a violence-obsessed industry, _Home Alone_ is a fairly accurate portrayal of what would happen if eleven-year-old Fred and George found themselves in the same situations. Merlin, if anything it's a fairly tame — if accurate — portrayal of what would happen if eleven-year-old Fred and George found themselves in the same situations.

Hermione dozes off with her head propped up on Draco's back. The wizard is lying down on his stomach across the bed, ranting about the Muggle-Wizard Security Council, and how he's sure he doesn't know where they went and found a more useless, obstructionist group of old-mummies. It's a mystery to him how anything ever gets done with that lot pulling the strings, and does Hermione think someone at the Ministry lost a bet and that's how they ended up having to accommodate the MWSC?

Hermione mutters something nearly indiscernible, not really paying attention anymore, and Draco carries on with his tirade, his voice like white noise, soothing and familiar.

And in that half-way place between sleep and wakefulness, Hermione forgets all about Bellatrix Lestrange, and Unforgivable Curses, and the unforgivable things they made her do. It could have been any of hundreds of similar nights spent in out of the way places — safe houses and not-so-safe houses and extraction points that were barely a hole in the ground — when it had been just the two of them and the long, dull wait for an extraction team or an idea or a miracle.

At some point, Draco rolls away and Hermione grumbles something that might have included actual words, but she doesn't wake up all the way. She's usually a light sleeper — the natural result of a childhood spent fending off bigger kids and less than friendly adults, followed by years as a PHOENIX agent — but she knows him instinctively, and trusts him completely, and is barely awake enough to feel the warm weight of the blanket he pulls over her.

"'S'okay," she mutters, pulling her knees up. "The code is a basket full of caps lock. And a Labrador."

Draco chuckles, leaning down and kissing her temple, a soft brush of the lips. "Good night."

"Night," she echoes, and part of her is still looking for the Labrador in her dream, and part of her is aware of the door clicking shut.

When she wakes up the next morning, Draco is gone and Minerva McGonagall is dead.


	5. The Riddle

"Neville, he would never."

Picture frames and small trinkets clatter on the shelves around the office, and the look Neville gives her is both exhausted and deeply unimpressed. Hermione crosses her arms and wills herself to calm down. Adult wizards don't let their magic misfire like that, and if they did, special agents for secret government agencies certainly shouldn't.

"I know it's hard to accept," he says, his tone strained but even. "But he did. He's been passing them information for months. Hell, for all we know he's been passing them information for years. And McGonagall— There were witnesses. Abbott almost lost an arm. McLaggen is still unconscious. He's lucky to be alive."

"But he— There has to be an explanation."

"Merlin, Hermione, there's no bloody explanation." Hermione actually takes a step back, surprised at the outburst. Neville doesn't normally do emotional, and he certainly doesn't do it where someone can see him. "He played you. He played us all. This entire time he was working for them. He was one of them." He takes a deep breath, sitting back down. "I want you well away from this."

"Neville—"

"That is not a suggestion. You brought him in. You two were close. And after everything— There's going to be an investigation. The Muggle-Wizard Security Council is already on Parkinson's case about how we allowed this to happen. There can be no question as to where your loyalties lie. Is that clear?"

"But—"

"Is that clear, agent?"

Hermione squares her shoulders, unconscionably mad — at Neville, at Draco, at Minerva McGonagall. "Yes, sir."

The entire room around them is still and quiet.

* * *

The mood at Number 12 is somber and tense, and only strict discipline and Pansy Parkinson's iron grip on the reins keep things from quickly spiralling out of control.

Parkinson — McGonagall's deputy and now acting Director — makes it clear from the start that she has no patience and no tolerance for petty quarrels or pointless squabbles. They've all suffered a loss, and it's only natural that they should mourn, but PHOENIX carries on. Minerva McGonagall was an extraordinary woman who served the wizarding community, and PHOENIX, and her country well. It's up to each of them to make sure her legacy endures. There will be an investigation, and Parkinson expects every agent to cooperate openly and fully with the Wizard-Muggle Security Council's task force. There _will_ be answers. And in the meantime, she expects them all to keep their wits about them. To carry on with their work. To look out for each other.

The look she gives Hermione just then is neither subtle nor lost on her audience, though she need not have worried. Sure, there are plenty of people who remember exactly how Draco Malfoy — a convicted Death Eater, a member of the Dark Lord's inner circle, responsible for countless atrocities — ended up a PHOENIX agent; who remember all too clearly that when Hermione had the chance to take him down, when she was given the _order_ to take him down, she made a different choice. Those people might wonder — often loudly and in no uncertain terms — whether it is not just a little too coincidental that the woman responsible for the deaths of so many of their own not that long should also now be, however indirectly, responsible for this.

Such people are a minority, however. In fact, and as it turns out, nothing could have been better for improving Hermione's standing in PHOENIX than Draco going rogue. Agents who not too long ago had been happy members of the angry mob calling for her head are now giving her sympathetic looks in the corridors, or nodding at her in passing. After all, Malfoy might have fooled them — for years he fooled them all — but he fooled her first, and he fooled her the most.

And what else could anyone expect, really? Granger might have some skill ( _Though whoever heard of a witch using a bow? It's all very well to say it has a much longer range than a wand, but it's just not seemly_.), but she is necessarily hindered by an upbringing that was at best unconventional and at worst deficient in some very fundamental ways. She can hardly be faulted for not attending Hogwarts — plenty of Muggle-borns fell through the cracks during the war — but it does mean that she never had a _proper_ magical education, and that she remains to this day something of an outsider in the wizarding community.

And Draco Malfoy, he's the handsome, educated, well-spoken son of one of the oldest and wealthiest pure-blood families in the country (and even with a family such as his, that still counts for something). Is it any wonder, then, that such a man could easily turn the head of a young woman who's neither pretty, nor learned, and who simply wants to belong? It's the oldest story in the world, really.

It's probably fortunate for everyone involved that Hermione is not aware of most of what's being said behind her back, because she might just have felt the need to demonstrate in great detail all the wonderful, creative, painful things an illiterate Mudblood can do with a bow.

As it turns out, Hermione barely notices she went from persona non grata to an almost universal object of pity almost overnight. She doesn't notice the sympathetic glances, or the kind looks, or the friendly overtures. When Lavender asks her whether she would like a sparring partner, Hermione answers distractedly that she's in the middle of something, an exchange that when later related to Cho Chang includes the words "on the verge of tears", and "so brave."

When Seamus Finnigan tells her rather gruffly that if she ever does need her stupid bow repaired or whatever, he will of course be happy to help, Hermione thinks only that the offer might indeed come in handy.

No, Hermione isn't paying much attention to the sudden outpour of support. She isn't paying much attention to much of anything going on around her, in fact. She's busy trying to work out a riddle, the answer to which keeps eluding her.

Despite what she said to Neville in his office, despite her first gut reaction to the news, she knows that it's not true that Draco would never do such a thing. Under the right circumstances, Draco would very much do such a thing. She loves the guy, but he's relentless and ruthless, and not overly burdened by scruples. Those are exactly the qualities that make him such an effective and valuable asset to PHOENIX. But despite McGonagall, despite all evidence to the contrary, it never once occurs to her to question his loyalty to the organisation.

Draco has spent years trying to make amends for all the things he did while serving Lord Voldemort, as if by killing enough of his former brethren, by foiling enough of their plans, he can somehow wipe out some of the blood in his ledger. He does not speak about the things he did, does not mention any of the things he cannot change, but sometimes after a difficult day, or a mission gone wrong, she'll catch him staring at his left arm as if wishing he could cut it off — a rare tell in a man who seldom gives anything away.

And it's certainly possible that it was all part of an elaborate ruse to deceive them all, a cunning plan years in the making. If anyone could pull it off, he could. But she does not think so, and not just because she does not want to think so. She trusts Draco — fully, implicitly, without question. She would trust him with her life. She _has_ trusted him with her life. More times than she can count, in more ways than she can say.

No. There's something she's missing, a pattern she's overlooking, an angle she's not seeing. If only she could figure out what.

She goes over the reports of the night in question, and then over the reports of all that was uncovered since. She combs through them carefully, trying to piece together what happened — the whos, the hows, the how comes. The first two seem evident. It's the third that still eludes her.

Draco has resurfaced quickly, first during a Death Eater attack at a fundraiser for the Muggle-Wizard Friendship Society, then during a raid on Gringotts. The first is a common enough event. Death Eaters sometimes go after important Muggle institutions (say, Parliament), but mostly they content themselves with low-risk targets, taking particular delight in making an example of those they consider to be blood traitors.

But Gringotts is a curious choice. The Death Eaters receive most of their funding from within their own ranks. Draco is not a special case. Much like him, many Death Eaters are the sons and daughters of old, powerful, wealthy wizarding families, and the bulk of that wealth is kept safely out of the hands of Muggle and wizarding law-enforcement agencies by the Gringotts goblins' long-held view that politics should not get in the way of doing business.

Parliament, and the Ministry of Magic, and every single British law-enforcement agency under the sun have tried to bring the goblins round to the view that funding terrorist organisations is neither legal nor ethical, but to no avail. The Gringotts goblins are equal-opportunity capitalists, and they won't shun loyal customers of so many years over a technicality. Any wizard or witch found to be in breach of the law should be tossed into Azkaban. People in Azkaban aren't known for making frequent withdrawals. If someone is not in Azkaban and shows up with the key to his or her vault, then Gringotts employees will continue to escort him or her to his or her vault, as they have done since times immemorial and expect to continue to do in the future, and they'd appreciate it if the Auror Office could stop harassing them and their clients. Thank you and good day.

There's no telling what vault the Death Eaters targeted nor what they took — because the goblins aren't talking, and the Death Eaters are even less likely (though not by much) to share that information — but whatever it was, it must have been important enough to risk alienating Gringotts.

Hermione stares at the still from the security footage. Draco is now using his father's mask instead of his old one. Wizard and Muggle specialists have spent days debating the significance of the change, but Hermione isn't sure there is one, or that it matters even if there is. The true mask is the one he wears under it, and no one's been able to see behind it in years. They'd all be fools to try.

"What are you doing?" she asks softly. The wizard in the photograph says nothing, and she can't imagine his real life counterpart would have said much more. Draco was always fond of secrets.

The sound of approaching footsteps prompts her to quickly extinguish the light of her wand. Hermione doesn't, strictly speaking, have security clearance to access any of the documentation in front of her, but years of experience have taught her that it is usually better to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission.

If before Hermione could barely bring herself to leave Number 12, now she finds herself unable to stay put, and spends most nights perched on top of some roof or other, for no better reason than because she's going crazy just sitting still at headquarters. She sees better from a distance, and she's currently too close to the whole thing. The more she looks at it, the less sense any of it makes.

One night she's sitting on top of the Heron Tower, watching the city lights in the distance, when she senses more than hears someone behind her. Hermione turns in one fluid motion, bringing her bow up and aiming an arrow straight at the heart of the wizard now standing in front of her.

"Merlin, Harry," she says, lowering the bow. "Don't sneak up on people."

"Sorry," he says, dismounting from his broom.

"How on earth did you find me?"

Harry shrugs. "Just started checking all the tall buildings."

It should worry her more than a little that she's that predictable.

"What do you need?"

"We need to talk about Malfoy."

Hermione puts the arrow back in the quiver, and raises an eyebrow at the wizard. "When did they involve the Auror Office?"

"They didn't." Harry spends so much time on PHOENIX missions that people often forget he's not technically an agent. "I just— I was looking at the case file and I have some concerns."

"At the case file?" Because she knows for a fact he doesn't have that sort of security clearance. Neither does she, of course, but as one of her foster mums was always very fond of reminding her, she's of a somewhat criminal disposition.

"Fred and George have ways."

"If Parkinson catches them accessing restricted information, she'll disappear them and their ways faster than they can say classified."

"No doubt. But she has to catch them first." Harry pauses for a moment. When he speaks again, his tone starts out careful, hesitant, as if he's not quite sure of his footing. "When you— When Bellatrix Imperiused you, PHOENIX never once doubted you were loyal." Oh, there had been doubts. Plenty doubted her still. "But nowhere in his entire file is the idea that he might be Imperiused even entertained."

Hermione suppresses a smile at his rising indignation. The unlikely friendship between Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy — PHOENIX's golden boy and one of Voldemort's deadliest lieutenants — has long been a source of perplexity and gossip. Wild stories of life debts and dark secrets, perhaps even blackmail, grow wilder and more improbable with each retelling.

The truth is simple enough. No one told Neville that when putting together a team he should probably stick to people who actually work for PHOENIX, and stay clear of criminals, maniacs and naive idealists, so he went and collected the big, bright hope of the wizarding world, two identical billionaire geniuses with no sense of boundaries, one former dark wizard, and Hermione. By this point, Harry and Draco have spent longer fighting side by side than they ever did on opposite sides, and grudging respect has necessarily turned to trust, turned to loyalty.

Many people at PHOENIX and at the Ministry never managed to see past Draco's Dark Mark, but Harry is not among them, and he has plenty of opinions about those who are.

And just like that, Hermione's struck by an idea — a mad, reckless, shockingly ill-advised idea that no sane person would ever entertain. It should be right up Harry's alley.

She just has to convince him of that.

"Draco used to be a member of Voldemort's inner circle," she says. "His parents were Death Eaters. He's Bellatrix's nephew. PHOENIX and the WMSC won't look any further than that." Pulling people's strings is Draco's game, but Hermione's always been a quick study.

"But how can they even think— After everything he's done for PHOENIX, all the times he almost got himself killed for them, and they won't even give him the benefit of the doubt?" Harry's outraged, incensed. No one does self-righteous indignation faster or better than Harry Potter.

Hermione shrugs. "Many people never agreed with McGonagall's decision to recruit him." Hers is the composed, nonchalant demeanour of the deeply indifferent. "They've been waiting a very long time for the chance to say 'I told you so.'"

"How can you be so bloody calm about this?"

And there's her cue. "What would you have me do, Harry?" she asks, in a flash of temper to rival his. "Do you think they'll listen to me after everything that happened? They've been waiting for an excuse to throw him in Azkaban for years. Now they have it. And there's nothing you or I can do about it."

 _Come on, Harry. Bite._

"Is that what you think they'll do? Throw him in Azkaban?" The wind carries the sound of his yelling, but they're too high up for it to reach anyone but her. "Merlin, Hermione. They've put a kill order on him. I've seen the parchment with my own eyes."

Of course they did. It's standard protocol. There's too many 'model citizens' among Bellatrix's followers, too many people shielded from consequences by wealth and status and powerful family names. The authority of the Wizengamot and the powers of the Auror Office are limited by such inconvenient things as burden of proof and the rule of law, but no such concerns trouble PHOENIX or the WMSC, who take a more liberal approach to the spirit — as opposed to the letter — of the law. There are kill orders out for all known Death Eaters, which means PHOENIX agents are authorised to use the Death Curse in combat situations at their discretion.

None of this should be news to Harry, who's worked closely with PHOENIX for long enough to know better, but James and Lily Potter's son is often blinded to the somewhat less reputable aspects of the work done by the agency his parents devoted their life to by a strict and sometimes misplaced sense of right and wrong that often verges on naive.

Hermione looks away from him with the troubled expression of someone for whom this news comes as a shock. She might not have Draco's skill — the man can make his face do anything he wants — but she's been a PHOENIX agent for a very long time. Despite what others may think, she's more than a weapon, more than what she can do with a wand or a bow.

"There's nothing we can do," she says. "PHOENIX—"

"Oh, hang PHOENIX. If they can cut off one of their own like this, I have no use for PHOENIX. He's Imperiused. He has to be. And we have to get him out."

And there it is.

"Even if we wanted to, the one place we can rely on him to be is Malfoy Manor. And we'll never get him there."

Malfoy Manor is Bellatrix's base of operations, and it was Voldemort's before that. It's virtually impenetrable. The whole estate is Unplottable, inaccessible by most conventional means and then some, and protected by more black magic and defensive wards than any other place in Britain. The Auror Office and PHOENIX have spent years trying to mount an effective assault against it with no luck, so of course Harry thinks he can single-handedly do better.

"There's always a way," he says. "We just have to try."

"Harry—"

"He would do the same for you."

No, he wouldn't. And he won't thank her for what she's about to do either.

"Okay," she says. "You're right. And I may have an idea. We'll need Fred and George."


	6. Mad, reckless and shockingly ill-advised

**Present Day**

Hermione keeps slipping in and out of consciousness, her mind full of grinning monsters and flashes of light and pain — pain always, pain everywhere — until she no longer knows what is real and what is not, until she can no longer distinguish between what was and what is and what never happened. Lies trip on secrets, trip on cover stories until it's all jumbled up together, and she can't talk, because she can't keep any of it straight inside her head anymore. She's not sure what's okay to say and what's not, so she can't say anything. She absolutely cannot say anything.

That part turns out to be easy — the easiest thing of all — because all she can do is scream anyway.

Hours pass — days? — and suddenly there's no more screaming, no more sound, nothing but silence and darkness. Hermione comes to with a whimper that echoes in the room around her. She stifles a sob and latches on to the pain like an anchor, willing herself to remain conscious. There's barely any light, but she can still make out pillars in the darkness, and low, arched ceilings.

The cellar.

Hermione tries to sit up and almost blacks out again from the razor-sharp pain on her side, but she hasn't made it this far to be held back by a little discomfort. She grits her teeth and uses her good arm to push herself up to a sitting position, back against the wall, and fights off the wave of nausea that hits her. It's fine. She's fine. She's alive.

Fred and George's False Memories Potion had worn off too early, but that had always been a possibility and she feels reasonably confident she did not say anything she shouldn't have. PHOENIX agents are trained to resist interrogation and to stay silent under torture, and Hermione has the added advantage of having once been a small, weird, bookish, freak of a kid who grew up surrounded by people who tried very hard to beat all her unnatural inclinations out of her. She can take pain. She can handle pain. She's been doing it her whole life. The False Memories Potion had simply been a safeguard.

"Twelve hours," is what George had said. "Maybe a little longer."

"If we make it any stronger, it may not wear off on its own."

"That's fine." She had taken the vial, looking at it against the oil lamp. "Twelve hours is enough time." Enough time for the Death Eaters to ask their questions. Enough time for them to get bored of trying to take apart her brain.

"This is a really stupid plan and we should all take a step back and think this through." Harry hadn't been happy. He hadn't been happy at all. Oh, he was sold on the premise. It was the execution he had serious problems with.

"It will be fine, Harry."

"It will be— Are you listening to yourself? This is mental. This is the daftest plan I ever heard, and that includes the time you jumped off a freaking roof. Zabini, will you back me up here?"

Zabini had looked up from the scrolls rolled out on the table in front of him. "I put the probability of success at around twelve per cent."

Fred and George had exchanged a look and then shrugged. "We've done more with less," Fred had said.

"Will you two stop encouraging her, for Merlin's sake?"

"Harry, I get that you're worried, but—"

"Worried? You're planning to get yourself captured by Bellatrix Lestrange. Why would that bloody worry me?"

"It's the only way in."

"We can find another way."

"There is no other way. The only way to get into Malfoy Manor is to be invited in or to be dragged in. That's it. Those are the options. Should we wait for Bellatrix to send her card around next time she's having a party?"

"That doesn't mean that— You can't just—" Harry had been pacing around the room like a caged lion, his hair all up in the air from him constantly tugging at it. "The moment you take that," he had said, pointing accusingly at the vial, "you won't even remember that they were meant to capture you. You'll either kill them or get yourself killed. And even if by some miracle you manage to get to Malfoy Manor in one piece, then what? You will be their prisoner. No wand, no weapons, no way to do anything or help anyone, not even yourself."

"If I can break the spell on Draco, getting out won't be a problem. It's his family's old estate. He'll find a way out."

"And how exactly do you propose to break the damn spell, when you won't even have a wand?"

"Same way he did it when I was Imperiused. Cognitive recalibration. I'll hit him really hard on the head."

Somehow Harry had failed to find that answer reassuring. "She will kill you. The moment she gets her hands on you, she _will_ kill you."

Hermione had smirked then, a smug, cocky grin partly meant to annoy Harry and partly meant to reassure herself. "Nonsense," she'd said. "Bellatrix loves me."

She can feel it even now, the truth of that statement. Pet, doll, darling girl — Bellatrix is full of terms of endearment. Mudblood is the one she chose to carve on Hermione's arm, the first of many such tokens of devotion. Hermione's whole body is an aching, painful, agonising reminder of Bellatrix Lestrange's affection.

A sound catches her attention, like metal scrapping against stone. It grows louder and suddenly there is a light — a small, bright spot that moves towards her like a firefly, increasingly brighter. It isn't long before Hermione recognises the wizard on the other end of the wand.

"Small world," she says, her voice low and hoarse.

Draco kneels down in front of her, his expression dark and forbidding.

"What the bloody hell are you doing here?"

"Scabior asked nicely."

"This is not fucking funny. What in Merlin's name were you thinking?" It should flatter her that he doesn't even question the fact that if they captured her it must have been because she let them, specially considering the time in the not so distant past when they did capture her for real. Hermione tries to follow what Draco's saying, tries hard to focus on him, but he keeps going out of focus, and the whole room is moving just at the edge of her vision, and words are hard. "There are at least twenty Death Eaters under this roof. Do you have any idea—"

"Shut up," she says at last, grasping his sleeve. If only the damn room would stop spinning. "Just— Shut up for a minute." Her head is pounding. She's exhausted and in pain, and she really needs him to stop yelling.

For a moment Draco does not move a muscle, does not say a word. He glares at her with cold, grey eyes, and she holds his gaze, too tired to do anything else. And then his shoulders fall and his expression softens, and he reaches for her, cupping her face with one hand before carefully leaning his forehead against hers.

"I could murder you right now," he says, but there's no bite to his tone. Hermione closes her eyes for a second and lets out a shaky breath. Her whole body is a study in pain — joints that ache, and cuts that sting, and ribs that light up like neon signs every time she breathes in — but Draco is warm and his hands are soft, and the room is finally still.

"What are you doing here?" he asks, letting go and sitting down next to her, shoulder to shoulder.

"Rescue mission."

He snorts, a humourless laugh that reverberates across the points where their arms touch. "And how's that working out for you?"

"Got them right where I want them." The look he gives her is all scepticism and she might almost feel insulted if she could muster up the energy. "Harry thinks you're Imperiused."

"Does he?" Now that his outburst is under control, he's Draco as she knows him: evasive, guarded and noncommittal.

"Yes."

"And what do you think?"

She thinks he's a bigger fool than she ever was. "' _Gathering intel to pass on to our enemies for whom I've been secretly working this whole time._ ' I think you're exactly where you want to be."

"That was a warning, not an invitation." He takes her arm in his hands and gently turns it, inspecting Bellatrix's handiwork. The flesh is red and swollen, and the word obscured by specks of dried blood, but it's still possible to make out most of the letters, and easy enough to infer the rest. "She could have killed you. She may kill you yet."

"It was a calculated risk."

"I don't think you know how math works."

"I'm still alive, aren't I?" She pulls her arm away, flinching when the gashes touch fabric. "It's under control."

"This is under control?"

Not to the casual observer, perhaps, but they all play to their strengths. Draco likes subtlety. He takes his time weaving his web, and laying his traps, and pulling people's strings with a touch so light they seldom catch on to the fact he's doing it. Subtlety has never been Hermione's strong suit. She jumps from really high places and hopes the fall won't kill her, knowing all the while that even if it does, it won't be until she has managed to loose an arrow in just the right way, at just the right time. The trick is not to overthink it and to keep an open mind about the possibility of breaking her neck.

She hasn't broken it yet.

"Have a little faith," she says, closing her eyes for a moment. All she needs is to keep it together long enough to see it through. Just a little while longer. She can do that. She absolutely can do that.

"Potter thought I was Imperiused." Draco's voice pulls her back from the edge of unconsciousness. "But you knew I wasn't. You knew I didn't need rescuing. So why are you really here?" She meets his gaze, but does not reply. Her arm pulsates painfully, the shape of the letters a burning trail where they snake across her skin. "You're not here for me." Draco always was quick on the uptake. "You're here for her."

"I can do more than one thing at once." Bellatrix is a dead woman. Hermione will see to that if it's the last thing she does. But she's here for him too. "You're a deniable asset."

"You're pointing that out because you think I don't know?"

"I'm pointing that out because I think you don't care. And I think you'll get yourself killed trying to even out a score only you are keeping."

"It's under control."

Hermione snorts. "That's what you said in Budapest, and I remember how that went down." They are both far too fond of walking a tightrope with no net. "Where's McGonagall?"

The look he gives her is a little amused, a little fond. "Somewhere safe."

"Who knows she's alive?"

"Parkinson. And now you."

And if that doesn't worry him, he really is a fool. Because if any of this goes sideways, PHOENIX will drop him faster than he can say 'black op.' They all lead dangerous lives — Draco and Hermione along with all the rest — and sooner or later the things they do are bound to catch up with them. One day they won't be fast enough or smart enough or good enough, and that will be it. The end. Game over. Thanks for playing. The only way any of them can do the job is to accept that.

But it's one thing to go in with the full weight of PHOENIX behind them, knowing that if necessary there will be backup, or an extraction plan, or someone to collect their body if all else fails, and a very different one to go in alone, with nothing but skill and a prayer and Pansy Parkinson's goodwill.

Spies and their secrets… This is why Hermione prefers the simpler trade of a sniper, the simple act of shooting someone who given the chance would be only too happy to shoot her first. Nock, draw, aim, shoot. It's simple. Straightforward. There's none of this unnecessary cloak and dagger nonsense, secrets nestled inside secrets like Russian dolls. Because even for PHOENIX, this is extreme. This is not what a normal op looks like, but apparently standard operative procedures are for lesser spies. No, Minerva McGonagall, Pansy Parkinson and Draco Malfoy play in the big leagues. Their secrets have secrets. Their plans are need to know only, and only three people need to know, because they're a triumvirate of deeply controlling, suspicious, paranoid—

Hermione's eyes go wide and she stares at Draco. Unless it isn't paranoia.

"Merlin," she whispers. She finally has the answer to her riddle. "How many?" How many of their own are traitors?

Draco looks away from her, his normally fair complexion even paler by the harsh light of the wand.

"Too many," he says. "More than should have gone unnoticed for so long. There's double agents on every single level of PHOENIX. Some of them have been there since before the war. At the Ministry as well. All the time we've been fighting them, the Death Eaters have had operatives right under our noses."

Hermione no longer feels the red-hot pain in her arm, no longer notices the constant agony of trying to fill her lungs against bruised and broken ribs. The enormity of what she just learned crowds everything else out of her mind.

"Do we know who?"

"Some for sure. I have a fair idea of others. But no one knows who everyone is, not even Bellatrix." It makes sense. No one can spill secrets they don't know. "Proving my loyalty should have made it easier to get information, and in some ways it has, but there are too many unknown variables, too many redundancies." He lets out a frustrated sigh. "I've hit a wall."

And Hermione can appreciate his frustration, she really can, but that's nothing to the anger bubbling in her chest, anger she could almost choke on, because suddenly she's hit by how right Draco had been to tell her that killing Bellatrix wouldn't change a thing. None of it will ever change a thing. Cut off one head and two more shall take its place. Again. And again. And again. Until the last ones standing are left to all the satisfaction of ruling over a pile of rubble and ash and broken bodies.

Well, she's not having it. She's not having any of it.

"We could smoke them out."

"What?"

"You said you don't know the identity of all of them. That no one knows the identity of all of them. Well, they know who they are. We could smoke them out."

"And how do you propose we do that?"

With a little ingenuity and the right carrot on a stick. Hermione sits up straighter, suddenly animated by all the ideas chasing each other inside her head, only to bite back a scream when her battered body violently objects to the movement.

"Easy," Draco says, his hand warm on the back of her neck. "This was a really stupid plan."

"That's what Harry said," she manages after a moment. "You two lack vision."

"How did you get him to help?"

"With lies and deceit. You'd have been proud."

Draco drops his hand and Hermione leans her head back against the wall, closing her eyes. No more moving. Moving is bad.

"I can have you out of here tonight."

And just like that she opens her eyes again, turning her head to look at him.

"No, you can't," she says. Not without tipping them off.

"I can. Say the word and I will."

She doesn't know whether to feel touched or offended. Both are probably called for.

"After all the trouble I had getting in? No, thanks. I'm good."

"Yeah, I can see that." He brushes a strand of hair from her face, his fingers just touching her skin. "You have a lot of faith in the notion that Bellatrix won't just kill you."

It isn't faith. She has faith in him. She has faith in Harry, and Neville, and the twins, and in her own ability to see herself through this and worse. Bellatrix she just knows really well, a deep, hard-won knowledge, burnt into flesh and bone. And if there's one thing Hermione knows about Bellatrix is that even if she's a psychotic, sadistic bitch, she's not stupid. Hermione is more than an amusement, more than something soft and warm and breakable for her to stick pins in. She's also a weapon, one of PHOENIX's finest. She's efficient, accurate, deadly, and sooner or later Bellatrix will put a bow in her hands, and Hermione will make sure it's the last thing she ever does.

And then she'll hunt down every last one of her minions, even if she has to burn PHOENIX to the ground to do it.


	7. Malfoy Manor

Nine hundred years of Malfoys have lived on the land where Malfoy Manor now stands — theirs is one of the oldest pure-blood families in the country — but by the time Lucius and Narcissa died, the Dark Lord had been the one sleeping in the master bedroom, the one giving orders while holding court in the main hall. The house and the grounds had been overrun by his lieutenants, by his lackeys, and by the army that was to restore wizarding society to its rightful place in the world.

There's not much of an army left now, and He Who Must Not Be Named is long gone, but centuries of Malfoys still look down from their portraits to see Bellatrix Lestrange play lady of the manor, surrounded by her horde of flunkies — inbred rabble who in times gone by would have been drawn and quartered, and their heads impaled on pikes for the amusement of their betters.

They look down from their portraits and see the Malfoy heir, the last of his line, hold his tongue and bow his head to that harpy of a woman ( _And how the Blacks have fallen!_ ). The shame is not to be borne.

Draco has little patience and no time for the shame of his forefathers. The one thing Lucius taught him, the one lesson that stuck, is that pride is as dangerous as the death curse, and twice as deadly. Draco has lived this long, has stayed alive this long, because he has long ago learnt to play the hand he's dealt, and bid his time until the chance presents itself for him to rig the game.

If that means he must take Bellatrix's orders, bow to her every whim, smile as she pats his cheek, then he will — gladly, enthusiastically, with all the zeal of a true believer. The prodigal son has returned and he's happy and eager to serve the cause.

He's done worse for less profit.

"Where is he?" Bellatrix's shrill voice bounces off the stone walls, filling the room. Some of the Death Eaters present shift uncomfortably in place. Theo Nott flinches noticeably, his face ashen. He always was a whimpering coward, even as a boy at Hogwarts. He'd have been better suited to life as a shopkeeper or a clerk, or something else equally mundane, but much like Draco he had fallen into the family business.

"It's only been an hour," Yaxley says with more courage than sense, a point immediately made by Bellatrix, who shoots a fireball in his direction, which he barely manages to dodge.

"It's only been an hour," she mimics in a pantomime voice. "The next person who fancies himself a cuckoo clock, will get their entrails ripped out through their throat."

Just then a soft pop heralds the arrival of a tall wizard in dark robes, who immediately falls to one knee, masked face bowed reverently.

"My lady," he says, his voice deep and familiar. "I apologise for the delay. I bring news."

"Out with it. You've kept us waiting long enough."

"We've been betrayed." The statement immediately sets the room ablaze with frantic murmurs. Bellatrix has gone preternaturally still. "Someone has talked. PHOENIX knows about our plans. They're moving the Dark Lord's remains. They mean to destroy them."

"Who?" Bellatrix's voice is low and soft and terrifying. "WHO?" she growls and the whole room starts.

"I— I couldn't find out." Bellatrix brings down her wand and the man screams, his mask splitting open, a thin red line crossing the side of his face where the curse hit him. Terry Boot. One of the names on Draco's list.

Boot bows down further, his forehead almost against the floor, his whole body shaking as he mumbles a litany of apologies and excuses, and vows to do better, to be better, to serve the cause better, but Bellatrix is no longer paying attention to him. No. Her eyes are on Draco, wide and accusing. When she darts across the room towards him, the Death Eaters closer to him shift away with more haste than dignity.

"Now, now, nephew, you wouldn't know anything about this?" Her voice is sickly-sweet, her expression soft as she tilts her head to look up at him, but her nails dig into his arm like claws and her wand presses painfully against his sternum.

Without breaking eye contact, without betraying the slightest change in expression, Draco reaches for his wand with slow, careful movements and, turning it between his fingers, holds it towards Bellatrix, end first.

"If you have cause to doubt me, aunt, to doubt my loyalty, my life is yours to take."

The room is so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Even Boot has stopped his whining. Bellatrix's expression is closed off and unreadable, and it could have gone either way, it really could, but just then Hermione whimpers, and Bellatrix lets go of him, swirling around with a dazzling smile.

"I know," she says with the giddiness of a girl. "Why don't we ask my little sparrow?" She stops near the long dining room table and looks up at Hermione's hovering form, a grotesque centrepiece brought out for Bellatrix's amusement. The witch had lost interest when Hermione passed out for the third or fourth time ( _Aren't Mudbloods such fragile little creatures?_ ), but now she has questions, and they could make a game out of it, and wouldn't that be fun?

The spell keeping Hermione airborne breaks and she hits the table with a thud and a scream that dies in her throat as Bellatrix claps a hand over her mouth.

"Shhhh, baby girl. None of that now. There's a rat in my little nest, and you're going to tell me who, aren't you?"

But all Hermione can do when Bellatrix removes her hand is sob and turn her face away from the other witch.

"Please," she says, her voice thick with tears. "Please, please, please, please."

"Hush, my love. It hurts, doesn't it?" She cups her face gently with one hand, forcing Hermione to look at her. "It will hurt worse if you don't tell me what I want to know."

"I don't know. I don't know. Please. I don't know."

Bellatrix's smile is wide and sunny and bright. "I so wished you'd say that. Crucio."

The scream that tears out of Hermione shakes her whole body, which seizes and convulses on the table. Bellatrix does not stop, does not slow down. She carries on with all the excitement of a child on Christmas Eve, and it's all Draco can do not to strike her down where she stands.

But he doesn't.

He forces himself not to tense up, makes himself keep his expression carefully neutral. No spy lasts long who can't control what his face and body language give away, and Draco's good. He's really good. He made it through Voldemort's reign, and more PHOENIX missions gone to hell than he can count. He made it this far. So he keeps his shoulders relaxed, and his expression blank, and looks for all the world to see like a man who has no more interest in the current proceedings than the polite curiosity demanded by geographical proximity.

No one who looks at him would guess that in that very moment Draco is planning in excruciating detail all the things he will do to Bellatrix when the time is right. Aunt dearest better hope Hermione kills her, because if he gets his hands on her before she does, he will take his sweet time showing her how well he learnt all the things she was at such pains to teach him.

It isn't long before Hermione breaks, though still longer than he would've liked. The trick is not to give in so easily it looks staged, nor to hold out so long one's mind shatters under the sheer weight of the spell.

"MacDougal," she says in a strangled voice, struggling to catch her breath. "Isobel MacDougal." MacDougal was another one of the names on Draco's list.

Bellatrix leans down and kisses her forehead. "Well done, beautiful girl. Yaxley, Karkaroff." The two men take a step forward. "Go handle our little infestation."

They Disapparate without a word. Nott, who had been hiding behind Karkaroff's larger frame, looks like he's about to puke.

Boot hasn't moved from where he still is on the ground, and Bellatrix seems to have lost all interest in anything but Hermione, who's whimpering and crying under her cruel hands and clever spells.

"We still have the matter of what to do about the Dark Lord's remains," Draco says. Only a fool would draw Bellatrix's attention back to himself, but sometimes needs must. They worked too hard to set this up for her to overlook the main point of this little farce.

Bella doesn't look away from Hermione, even smiles a little wider when the younger woman can't bite back a scream. "What can they do that others haven't tried?" she says, running her wand down the side of Hermione's face. "Our lord is protected by magic more powerful than any half-bloods and blood traitors would know what to do with. We'll get him back in good time."

Well, that just won't do.

"Boot," he says, and the man starts and seems to shrink into himself. "Where are they taking the remains? How do they plan to destroy them?"

"I— That is— I'm not—"

"Speak up, man." Terry doesn't want to be the bearer of more bad news, and who can blame him? But Draco needs Bellatrix to care. He needs her to know the where and the how and the who.

"Hogwarts. They're taking them to Hogwarts."

That gets the witch's attention. " _Where_ are they taking him?" She lets go of Hermione, who heaves an unsteady sigh of relief. Boot looks like he might pass out.

"The Director— Parkinson said there's older magic in the castle than anywhere else in Britain. She said that they can use it, channel it to destroy what is left of He Who Must Not Be Named's remains."

Bellatrix looks at Draco, and there's something like fear in her expression now, something verging on panic.

"No! We must not let them. When are they moving him? It cannot happen." She's pacing now, tense and on edge, her hands shaking where they clutch her wand.

"Aunt, perhaps we could use this to our advantage."

She stops dead in her tracks. "Use it to our advantage how?"

"Hogwarts _is_ the most powerful place in Britain. Any power they can use to destroy those remains is power we can use to bring our lord back. We have almost everything we need for the spell." Two of the Hallows, Riddle's bones, and a willing sacrifice. "If we make sure Potter is part of the group sent to Hogwarts, we'll have everything we're still missing in the one place with enough raw power for us to actually pull off the spell. The remains, the Elder Wand, and Potter's blood." He ticks them off on his fingers. "We can bring him back."

How is that for a carrot on a stick?

A flash of doubt flickers across Bellatrix's face and then it's gone, replaced by a wide, manic grin. "We can bring him back," she echoes with a dark glee.

"We'll never get into Hogwarts," Nott says, and Draco's money would not have been on him of all people pointing it out, though it suited him that someone had. "The wards around the school—"

"Wards can be torn down," Bellatrix says dismissively.

"We don't have the numbers to—"

"Are you questioning me, Nott?"

He shakes his head furiously, face ashen, but is spared having to reply by the intervention of Rodolphus Lestrange, who's not afraid of his wife by virtue of being almost as bat-shit crazy as she is.

"Nott's not wrong," he says. "There's too few of us to take down those wards. Maybe once we could have done it, but not now. It would take an army."

Draco does not volunteer a solution, does not say a word. It will not do to seem too eager. The trick to any good con is not to oversell it. He provided the bait. They have to bite.

"Pah, an army." Bellatrix wanders back towards the table, deep in thought. She pets Hermione's hair absent-mindedly for several moments, and then stops her hand mid-movement. "Whoever they send to Hogwarts with the Dark Lord, we'll make sure Potter and enough of our people are in that group. We'll need Death Eaters past the wards."

"It won't be enough to get the rest of us in."

Hermione yelps when Bellatrix yanks her hair back. "Tut tut," she says, her face only a few inches from the witch's, a deranged smile on her face. "You ever get tired of whining, Rodolphus?" She casts a brief glance his way, but when she speaks again her attention is all on Hermione. "We'll call up all our brothers and sisters. Every single Death Eater in Britain. We'll call up the werewolves and the giants, and Scabior's merry band of thieves and grave-diggers. You want an army? I can get us an army. Can't I, pet?"

But Lestrange is not easily convinced. "If you put the bulk of our forces in one place, PHOENIX and the Ministry will be on us before we even reach the school."

And here it is.

"Then we'll have to make sure PHOENIX and the Ministry are otherwise engaged, won't we? Carrow."

"Ma'am?"

"Boot here will find out when they plan to move the remains, won't you Bootsy?" Terry nods frantically. "Send word to our allies. Tell them it is time for them to prove their loyalty once and for all." She looks towards the man by the door. "Dolohov." Antonin Dolohov bows slightly, his features hidden behind an elaborate mask. "Wake up our sleepers. The moment we move on the school, I want them to take over PHOENIX and the Ministry." Bellatrix glances around the room, her eyes alive with excitement. "The time has come. This will be our moment of greatest triumph. Our lord will rise once again and we will offer him a world where pure-blood wizards rule, as is our right."

"As is our right," Barty Crouch says, nodding in agreement, and soon enough they're all echoing the same words, softly at first, like a mantra, and then in a crescendo until it becomes a war cry.

Hermione is lying still, her eyes open and unblinking, tears falling down the side of her face, but Draco does not miss the slight uptick of her lips, a blink-it-and-you-miss-it smile that does not last more than a fraction of a second.

It's her plan, and his bait, and he could not have come up with a better one if he tried. The Death Eaters have spent years trying to find a way to bring the Dark Lord back from the dead, despite the fact that it's never been done, despite the fact that it's quite impossible. The spell they're working on is a mismatched quilt of Egyptian lore and Celtic spells, and enough black magic to destroy anything it comes in contact with. It will never work, and it's a fool who thinks otherwise, but he's not taking any chances. He was part of the group of Death Eaters who retrieved the Resurrection Stone from Gringotts, and it took no more than a small sleight of hand to replace it with a fake.

Sometimes it doesn't take magic. Sometimes all it takes is quick fingers and a little misdirection. Hermione taught him that.

That very night, three house-elves Disapparate from Malfoy Manor without anyone being any the wiser. Misty goes to Shell Cottage, where McGonagall is hiding. Ziggy goes to Weasley Tower, where Harry and the twins are waiting for word. Dobby goes to Number 12 Grimmauld Place, with the intelligence Parkinson needs.

The twins had thought to hide a communication device in one of Hermione's arrows — a blend of Muggle tech and magic that no Death Eater would think to look for, let alone be able to find — and Scabior had very obligingly brought her bow and quiver along when he captured her, but Draco has his own methods of passing information.

Bellatrix and the rest of them think themselves so far above their company, that they never once stopped to think that the small creatures serving their every whim might pose any sort of danger to them, powerful, pure-blood wizards that they are. The house-elves at Malfoy Manor are so far below their notice that neither Bellatrix, nor Rodolphus, nor any of the others realised that they pose a glaring security problem. Because as it turns out, though the house-elves are perfectly happy to fetch and carry for any of the pure-blood inhabitants of Malfoy Manor, they only truly serve the Malfoy family, and Draco is the last member of that family.

Nine hundred years of Malfoys have lived on this land, many of them in this very house, and Draco is the last of his line. This is his land, this is his home, and these are his house-elves. And they're more than happy to do his bidding and keep his secrets.


	8. The Battle of Hogwarts

The wards that surround Hogwarts are as old as the castle's foundations, and almost as deep. Successive headmasters and headmistresses have improved on the Founders' original spells, weaving their own protective wards into the tapestry of magic that surrounds the school and the grounds. It has kept the castle safe in times of war and civil strife, and the school has never been taken by force.

Grindelwald never tried to attack the castle. The Dark Lord never tried to attack the castle. It requires an astonishing amount of arrogance on Bellatrix's part to believe she can do what others knew better than to even attempt. Luckily for Draco, Bellatrix never lacked arrogance. More than that, she is filled with an almost religious fervour. Her quest is a holy one, and she will succeed because it is her destiny and because her cause is righteous.

Her enthusiasm is infectious, and the army that charges the outer edge of the defensive perimeter is in a frenzy. Werewolves and giants throw themselves at the invisible wall again and again, as if a physical attack had any hope of damaging the protective barrier. They're past caring. There's spoils beyond that wall, a castle full of riches, and power, and small, breakable children for them to rip to shreds. Not one of them cares whether the Dark Lord rises again or not. What has he ever done for them? What has any wizard ever done for them? But they love the taste of rich, warm blood, and soft flesh, and screaming prey, and Bellatrix has promised them plenty of that.

There's more Death Eaters than Draco has seen anywhere since the war, more than he would have thought possible if he hadn't known better. As it is, he's unsurprised.

The wards glow softly under the barrage of spells from Death Eater wands. The barrier will fall, but not yet. A trap shouldn't look like a trap.

If everything went according to plan, the sleeper agents at PHOENIX and at the Ministry will have started their attempts to take over by now. Dolohov passed on Bellatrix's orders to the heads of the lower cells, which will have passed them on to the agents immediately above them, which will have passed them on to the agents immediately above _them_ , until it reached all the tentacles of the beast lying in waiting inside PHOENIX. The cell system they operate under ensures that no sleeper agent knows more than the identities of the agents immediately above and below him or her in the chain. It's an ingenious system, and Draco both loathes and looks up to whoever came up with it. It's what kept him from being able to identify them all.

An arrow flies past him and buries itself on the barrier, which shines brighter around it, and Draco doesn't have to look to know Hermione's exact location. He's been keeping tabs on her since they left the Manor. She's the only part of this whole plan that gives him pause.

They're all of them one step away from disaster, and no amount of preparation, no amount of surprise can ensure their side will come out on top, or that even if it does they will live to see it. Because they don't know who the traitors are, they had to keep the numbers of people in the know small — smaller than he would've liked, and smaller than is practical. Particularly at PHOENIX HQ and at the Ministry, the Death Eaters will have the upper hand, at least at first. There _will_ be casualties. Whichever way the day goes, there will be collateral damage. Draco accepts that.

Death doesn't worry him, not even his own. Defeat does not worry him. He lived through the war and through everything that followed, and if there's anything he learnt is that good people die every day. He tends not to weep over it. They prepared as well as they could, and they'll carry the day or die trying. There are worse ways to go.

What does worry him is Hermione, standing by Bellatrix's side, her eyes glazed over and vacant as she shoots enchanted arrow after enchanted arrow at the defensive barrier. It's the one part of the plan that worried her too, for all that she never said a word; the one thing that worried her even as Bellatrix pushed her mind almost to breaking point and made her scream until her voice broke.

"If it comes to it," she had said, the last words she had said to him, "don't let me hurt anyone."

And he won't. If it comes to it, he will be the one to take her down. Because she asked. Because she trusts him to do it. Because he owes her that and more. But Hermione is the last good part of him, and he's not sure what sort of man will come out on the other side of that. He's not sure he or anyone else will care to find out.

When the wards fall, it doesn't happen all at once. It starts with a small tear, no bigger than the span of a hand. It looks small at first, inconsequential, but then it gets increasingly larger, and suddenly there's more tears, more gaps in the barrier, until the whole thing drops in a shower of silvery scraps, burnt around the edges. The moment it happens, the werewolves and giants charge forward, but they're quickly overtaken by the wizards and witches, who immediately Disapparate and Apparate onto the grounds, once, twice, three times, crossing the open space towards the castle.

Draco does likewise, Disapparating right after Bellatrix and Hermione. He doesn't pause, does not look back, but knows that the moment the last wizard crosses the perimeter, the wards will snap back into place a few yards closer to the castle, trapping a lot of the werewolves and most of the giants on the outside. The creatures will hurl themselves at the barrier in increasing frustration, only to realise too late that two British Army companies have approached them from behind and have them pinned in place.

Funny thing about Death Eaters and their ilk: they never remember to factor in Muggles.

The moment the wards re-appear, several of the Death Eaters still Apparating and Disapparating their way closer to the castle suddenly fall from the sky with startled screams. If there's any justice in the world, more than a few will not get up again.

Draco had overestimated how long the wards would be down, so he too is caught by surprise when they snap back into place. Seeker reflexes kick in and he slows down his fall with a quick spell, landing with ease on the main courtyard.

All around him there's chaos.

Death Eaters clash against PHOENIX agents, and Aurors, and the castle defences. Next to him a seven-foot statue spears a masked figure from behind, impaling him all the way through. A few feet away, a man's skull cracks with a sickening sound under a centaur's hooves.

Bellatrix and Hermione are nowhere to be seen. Draco runs towards the big double doors, casting a stun in passing at the witch fighting Cho Chang. He takes off his mask, letting it drop, and his black robes shine briefly before vanishing, leaving only his PHOENIX uniform.

If outside there was chaos, that is nothing to the mayhem inside. It's obvious now to everyone that this was a trap, and the Death Eaters fight like cornered animals — furious and vicious and dangerous. Spells bounce off walls, hitting targets indiscriminately, and chunks of stone crumble from the ceiling. The air is heavy with smoke and the stench of charred flesh, and all around him people are shouting — spells, challenges, guttural howls of pain.

There are fewer agents inside, fewer Aurors too. Bellatrix's scattered forces fight off against suits of armour, and the school's faculty, and the castle's house-elves, who showed up in force to defend their home. Barty Crouch screeches like a banshee when a female house-elf bites his neck, and the small creature holds on to him with a vice-like grip as he frantically tries to dislodge her.

Draco comes across Potter in the Great Hall, where he's been cornered by Yaxley, Avery and Rabastan Lestrange. The Auror casts spell after spell in rapid succession, trying to keep them at a distance, but they're slowly pushing him against a wall. Draco's Death Curse hits Lestrange square in the back, and the wizard drops without making a sound. Avery looks to the side, surprised, and it's all the opening Harry needs to catch him with a full-body bind. He always was far too measured with his offensive spells.

Trusting that Harry — despite his often inconvenient and certainly misplaced scruples — is more than a match for Yaxley, Draco rushes across the Hall and out the door at the other end. He needs to find his aunt. He needs to find Hermione. If Bellatrix did not come for Harry and the Elder Wand, it's because she had her sights elsewhere, and he has no trouble imagining where.

His aunt Bella is many things, but complicated is not one of them. For all that she'd dearly love to get her hands on Potter and the Elder Wand, the first thing on her mind — the only thing on her mind — is _him,_ always _him_. Voldemort. The Dark Lord. Whatever shrivelled, dried up thing passes for a soul inside Bellatrix Lestrange clings to him even now.

And trap or no trap, if there's a chance he's really here — if there's _the smallest_ chance he's really here — she'll find him.

There are fewer people this deep inside the castle, and the sounds of fighting decrease until they stop entirely, but Draco knows he's on the right track. Whatever doubts he might have had quickly vanish when he comes across Lavender Brown, her eyes open and unblinking, the white PHOENIX emblem on her uniform red with blood.

He keeps going, running past empty portraits and silent classrooms, and finally catches up with them on the south gallery, almost at the stairwell leading up to the Astronomy Tower. The Tower, situated right above the entrance, is the highest place in the school, a natural convergence point for the castle's power currents. It's not surprising that Bellatrix would have assumed that if they meant to destroy the Dark Lord's remains, that is where they'd do it.

There's six of them, not counting Hermione: Bellatrix, Rodolphus, Dolohov, the Carrow siblings, and Macnair. Bellatrix is the only one not wearing a mask, the only one arrogant enough to proudly show her face, but he has no trouble recognising the others, even with their backs to him. He's spent years studying Voldemort's lieutenants, and then Bellatrix's, learning everything about them — the way they look, the way they move, what spells they favour. Everything so that when the day came to make them pay for all the things they've done — all the things they've made him do — he'd be up to the task.

Today is that day.

Draco does not stop, he does not pause. There's six of them — seven with Hermione — and only one of him, but he's driven by faith — in himself, in his skills, in the bone-deep hatred he bears them — and if he dies today, he'll take with him as many of them as he can.

Alecto shrieks when Amycus is hurled sideways against a wall, the sound of breaking bones echoing in the almost empty corridor. He falls to the ground and Draco quickly dives out of the way of Macnair's Unforgivable. Suddenly they're all on him, bombarding him with an endless barrage of curses and black magic. His protective armour absorbs most of Dolohov's Sectumsempra, and he casts a shield just in time to stop Rodolphus's Stinging Hex. They're fast, but he's faster; they're good, but he's better. Draco whirls and ducks and dives out of the way of hexes and jinxes and curses, casting his own back with precision and power and grace. The trick is not to hesitate, not to overthink it, but to keep going, faster and faster, letting instinct and muscle memory take over.

Bellatrix does not join the fray, seemingly happy to let her personal guard deal with him. Queens don't concern themselves with flies. Or, come to that, with blood-traitor nephews that should have been drowned in their infancy.

She does not seem to worry when Rodolphus falls to Draco's death curse, does not make a move when Alecto is thrown through a window, her screaming loud in their ears one moment and gone the next. But when Dolohov and Mcnair start to give ground to Draco, she must revisit her stance on flies, because he hears her give the order, "Take him down," and from the corner of his eye sees Hermione reach behind her for an arrow.

* * *

The arrow feels steady and solid between her fingers, the tension of the string almost comforting in its familiarity. Hermione brings the bow up and takes careful aim at her target, analysing his movements, finding the pattern, anticipating where he will be. It takes no more than a second from the moment Bellatrix gives the order. Nock, draw, aim, shoot. Simple.

Mcnair makes a wet sound when the arrow pierces his neck from behind, but it's her whispered _Avada Kedrava_ that kills him. Merlin, she loves her enhanced bow.

Before Bellatrix has time to react, Hermione brings up the bow in an arc, hitting her under her chin, and quickly swirls in place and sweeps her feet from under her.

"Yeah, I've done the whole mind control thing." She shoots Bellatrix's hand clean through before the other woman can reach the wand she'd dropped. "Not a fan." And then she puts an arrow through her other hand for good measure, pinning her in place.

Bellatrix screams and howls, a wild expression on her face as she thrashes and tries to break free, but the sort of arrows that can pierce stone are the sort of arrows that won't let her go anywhere. Isn't magic grand?

That taken care of, Hermione turns towards Draco just in time to see the flash of green that knocks Dolohov down. The Death Eater falls to the ground with a thud, and in the moments that follow the only movement, the only sounds in the gallery, are Bellatrix's increasingly frantic shrieks and Draco trying to catch his breath. And then he looks at her and smiles.

"Couldn't have lent me a hand?" he asks, and Hermione shrugs.

"You seemed to have it under control."

"I'm touched by so much confidence."

He pulls her to him and she wraps her free arm around him. Draco squeezes her hard enough to hurt, and Hermione squeezes back, too relieved for words. Because he's alive and she's alive, and because when it came down to it, she measured up. She hadn't been sure she would.

Bellatrix's howls have turned to mad cackling, and the woman is pulling ineffectively on the arrows, blood pooling on her palms.

"You think you've won, baby girl?" Her voice is loud and shrill. "Clever little Mudblood who tricked her betters? Think they'll forgive you now?"

"What do we do with her?" Draco asks.

"What's the protocol?" Hermione asks as if she doesn't know the answer.

"My pretty little sparrow pretending to be a hawk," Bellatrix continues over them. "Is that confidence or arrogance or stubbornness, I wonder?"

"Outside of combat? Capture her."

"I've seen inside your brain, dove, and there's nothing in it I haven't put there. You're mine, and you'll never be rid of—"

The arrow cuts off the string of words, poking obscenely out of Bellatrix's right eye socket. Her left eye widens in a startled expression, only to quickly disappear under a second arrow.

"Oops." Hermione nocks a third arrow and aims for the heart, though she's fairly sure Bellatrix doesn't have one. When the arrow hits its target, Hermione feels lighter than she's felt in months. "She always did talk too much."

Draco wraps an arm around her neck and pulls her to him, kissing the side of her head before letting go. "Come on," he says. "There's still a battle going on."

But by the time they reach the main landing, the battle is over. Ernest Macmillan, who's overseeing the transport of prisoners, nods at Hermione in passing. Just inside the Great Hall, Aberforth Dumbledore can be heard talking loudly with Gawain Robards.

"And if in the future the Auror Office would not find it too troublesome to give us more notice to evacuate than half an hour, I'd greatly appreciate it."

"Apologies, Headmaster. It was a matter of the utmost secrecy."

"It's all very well for you to say so, Robards, but you try squeezing three hundred students of four different Houses into the Room of Requirement, because it's the only thing you can do in such short notice. The outside might just have been safer, Death Eaters and all."

"Hermione, Malfoy!" They turn to see one of the twins walk towards them. "Glad to see you've made it."

"You too, Fred."

"George."

"Oh, sorry, George."

"Nah, just messing with ya. I'm Fred. Merlin, I'm going to miss doing that." He points at his ear, making a circular motion with his finger. "George got his ear torn off by a curse. That will kind of give the plot away now."

Hermione doesn't know whether to be alarmed or amused. "Is he okay?"

"Oh, yeah, he's brilliant. Giving everyone an earful about it. Get it? Earful?"

"Any news from Number 12 and the Ministry?" Draco asks, less interested than Hermione in George's missing ear.

Fred smiles widens. "Ginny sent word from Grimmauld Place and Neville from the Ministry. Parkinson held PHOENIX HQ, and McGonagall's reinforcements helped quell the uprising at the Ministry. We got them all." Hermione smiles up at Draco, who smiles back at her and tightens his arm around her shoulders. "Oh, by the way," Fred continues. "Neville said that when you're back at Number 12, he's going to sit you both down and have you copy out the PHOENIX handbook by hand a few hundred times until you learn the value of not lying to your superior officer to go off on crackpot missions without official oversight." Hermione makes to speak, but Fred cuts her off. "If you're going to bring up Parkinson or McGonagall, I wouldn't, because according to Neville, he," he points at Draco, "has, and I quote, 'a flimsy and questionable claim to official oversight', but you have diddly-squat, because apparently George and I don't count as official anything, which I really resent, because let's face it—"

They never find out why he really resents it, because just then Blaise appears by his side with a message from George demanding to know why his own twin is not at his bedside in this, his hour of greatest need, and if Fred has anything to say for himself, any sort of explanation to offer for his lack of brotherly concern, George is all ears.

They watch them leave in silence, and then Hermione sits down at one of the nearby tables, suddenly bone-weary.

"Merlin, I'm exhausted." She looks up at Draco, who moves closer to her, but does not sit down. "Sit," she says with a pout. She's tired and cold, and he's practically a furnace.

Unfortunately for her, Draco is determined to be difficult. "This is the Gryffindor table." He makes a face, and though Hermione isn't entirely sure what that means, she's pretty sure she doesn't care.

"Sit down, Malfoy," she says, kicking his shin. He rolls his eyes, but sits down next to her, and she hooks her arm with his, leaning against him. "Neville is going to make us do paperwork on this until we're old and grey."

"Don't worry. We'll get ourselves killed before then."

"You're an optimist."

"We could always go on the run. Can't make us do paperwork if he can't find us."

"I tried that. Some jerk came to get me and drag me back."

He smirks at her, nudging her foot with his. "No more than you deserved for hiding out in bloody Siberia of all places. Of all the stupid cliches."

"Shuddup," is her very mature reply.

They sit in comfortable silence for several minutes, a small island of quietness in a sea of chaos. There's rubble everywhere, and people hurrying back and forth — Aurors, PHOENIX agents, people Hermione doesn't know and who must be teachers.

Kids have started to appear as well, boys and girls who look more curious than worried, and more excited than afraid. Some are wearing Muggle clothes, but the vast majority of them are in their school uniform, and Hermione tries to imagine Draco as he must have been once upon a time, a young boy in a pointed hat and Hogwarts robes just like them. She tries to imagine a world where she too might have worn those clothes and sat in this hall surrounded by classmates and teachers and friends, but that proves too much of a stretch.

"Thank you for coming after me," she says. That time in Siberia and all the other times.

Just outside the door, Barty Crouch shouts threats and obscenities as Seamus and Macmillan drag him away. Of Bellatrix's inner circle, he's the only one who survived the battle.

Draco shifts his left arm almost imperceptibly, the smallest of tells.

"Thank you for coming after me too."

 **The End**

* * *

 **AN: Thank you so much for reading! Hope you enjoyed it :) A huge thanks to everyone who followed, favorited and reviewed. You are all wonderful 3**


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